


Isosceles

by imogenbynight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (but it seems like a good idea to mention it just in case anyone was worried about that), (which should go without saying because Sam), Angst, Author feels it is important to note here that Sam's disapproval is not homophobic in nature, Author is a card carrying member of Team Everybody Switches Forever, Canon Divergent, He just wants to protect his brother and his best friend, M/M, Pining, Post-Episode: s12e12 Stuck In The Middle (With You), Sam's heart is in the right place but he makes some bad calls in this :(, Sneaking Around, Team Free Will, Texting, Wings, casefic, long distance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-04-18 07:30:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14208198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imogenbynight/pseuds/imogenbynight
Summary: Castiel is prepared for there to be fallout following his deathbed confession of love for Dean, but Sam's disapproval is not something he'd ever anticipated.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hautesauce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hautesauce/gifts).



> An incredibly late prompt fill for HauteSauce, whose patience has been nothing short of saint-like. 
> 
> Posting chapter by chapter as I complete a full rewrite of the less-than-stellar version I'd written during the Godawful Writing Hell Slump of 2017.

It’s cold outside the barn, and the damp grass reaches Castiel’s knees, soaking through his suit pants to make them cling to his legs. If he were still human, the discomfort might be enough to push his thoughts from the track they’re stuck on. As it is, his angelic grace shields him from distraction and curses him with an eidetic memory that he cannot shake loose.

 _I love you_ , he’d said.

Even now, several minutes after he’d allowed Dean and Sam to pull him to his feet and followed them out into the chill winter air, he feels the sharp edges of those words sticking in his throat. As though they’d lodged there on their way out and left behind some trace of themselves. As though they’d altered him permanently in body and soul before they tripped so carelessly from his lips.

As they loop in his head, again and again, he comes to realize that they have. He’s changed. Everything has changed.

It had been foolish to say it—cruel, even, considering his timing—but with certain death mere moments away, he’d been incapable of holding himself back any longer.

He’s died enough times now for it to have become almost laughable to fear it—he notion that he’d ever stay dead and not be dragged, exhausted and deeply bruised, back into existence—but every other time he’s been taken so swiftly and with such little warning that any chance of a death-bed confession was lost with him. 

It had seemed a cause for regret, before. Now, he contemplates the possibility that it was a blessing to have been so frequently stripped of the option.

 _I love you_ , he’d said, and Dean hadn’t been able to meet his eye. Castiel doesn’t blame him. 

He imagines the tables turned, hearing those words spoken aloud—at last, _at last_ —at a moment when nothing could be done with them. He imagines it with startling clarity, and feels a pang in his chest, aching deep.

Though he tries to tell himself that he’s only feeling a physical reaction to an emotional stimulant because he’s been weakened by the lance, he knows deep down that it’s more than that. Since his brief and ill-fated time as a human, the soul he grew has remained heavy at his core, lending an unshakable weight to each moment he’s experienced. This is more of the same. A maddeningly human reaction.

(It does not escape his notice that he’s retained most of the worst aspects of human existence, while losing most of the good ones. The trade off is one that he neither understands nor appreciates, and more than once he’s wondered if it’s been done to him on purpose as a punishment for his many crimes. It would not be beyond Chuck to orchestrate something like this.)

At any rate, even if he _hadn’t_ spent half the evening fighting back the toxic spread of poison under his skin, he’s certain that this particular brand of heartache would not be found on the long list of pains that his grace is capable of dulling.

Carefully, he presses his palm against the half-healed wound. He grits his teeth at the sharp pain that follows, blinking away the spots that dance in his vision, then sucks in an icy breath and resumes walking.

A little way ahead, the Impala is parked at an angle on the overgrown grass, and Castiel watches as Dean tosses the broken lance into the open trunk before staring down at his hands. After a moment, he wipes them against his jeans and sighs. As he does, Castiel senses a wave of need flowing out from Dean’s soul, so strong that he can see it. 

It’s the silvery-warm color of pre-dawn sky, stretching out between them like a reaching hand. The sight makes him falter in his step.

Dean’s love for him, though unspoken, is something he’s been aware of for almost as long as he’s been aware of his own love for Dean. It still leaves him rattled whenever he feels it surge.

As though he’s somehow aware that Castiel is watching him, Dean glances up to meet his gaze for the briefest second before his eyes dart away again. It’s not subtle, the way he forces himself to focus on shifting the rest of the weapons, and finally Castiel’s train of thought arrives at the next stop: what now?

He has no idea where on Earth they’re supposed to go from here. If he should try to play off what he said as nothing. If he should deign to address it at all.

He barely gives either option a passing glance.

Though he’s worked hard at ignoring the truth of his feelings and the knowledge of what they mean for far longer than he cares to think of, he can’t do that anymore. Not now. Not with the words out in the open like this. 

Not now that he knows the taste of them, the shape of them, the weight of them on his tongue. Not now that he knows the feeling of simultaneous dread and relief that comes from standing on the precipice and leaping right off; of grasping at the nearest handhold at the last possible moment, too afraid to fall all the way, too afraid to fall alone.

_I love all of you._

It was a desperate addition, but he knows that it was fruitless in the end. Dean knew his meaning the moment he’d spoken, and the plural of the second phrase only highlighted the singular of the first. 

Pretending that neither of them know at this point is a pointless exercise in self-denial. If he’s being honest with himself, it’s been that way for a while now.

Whether they’re ready or not, it’s past time to face this head on. Tomorrow morning. He’ll invite Dean to take a drive—the car is the best place for this conversation, he thinks, because when Dean inevitably panics, neither of them will have the option to run away—and they’ll talk.

They’ll talk, at last, and Dean will either tell him that he does not want to pursue the feelings that Castiel knows he has, or he’ll decide to take a chance. Castiel dearly hopes for the latter. He’s prepared for the former.

There’s a reason he’s never broached the topic with Dean before, after all, and it’s not because he’s ever doubted that their love was mutual. Dean is complicated. Castiel knows this, and he’s ready to deal with the potential fallout.

With new purpose, he continues forward, veering a little to the left on unsteady feet as he passes Mary and Sam and heads for his truck. He stops when he feels a loose grip around his arm. When he looks back, it’s to see Sam’s tired eyes regarding him with concern.

“This way, Cas,” he says, tugging him back toward the open rear passenger door of the Impala as though he thinks Castiel missed it. “C’mon.”

Castiel just frowns and looks at his truck where it’s parked beneath a huge tree, branches dipping low as they’re weighed down with wet leaves. From here, he can see that the rear tire on the driver’s side is sagging, desperately in need of some air. Dean’s already told him to deal with it three times. He’ll have to do it before he gets back to the bunker to avoid an argument before their drive in the morning.

He slips his keys from his pocket. They jingle loud in the late night quiet.

“It’s fine,” he tells Sam. “I’ll meet you all back at—”

“No way in hell are you driving right now,” Dean cuts in. He’s still by the trunk, rearranging the weapons that he’s already packed in such a way that Castiel knows he’s just trying to avoid eye contact.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he insists.

Dean slams the trunk.

“You almost died in there.”

“But I didn’t.”

“He’s right, Castiel,” Mary adds, shooting a wary glance at Dean as he makes his way over to where they stand. “You can barely walk straight.”

“But I can’t just leave my—”

“Gimme your keys,” Dean says before Castiel can argue any further.

“I’m—”

“Keys, Cas.”

He holds out his hand, expectant, and now that he’s close and actually looking Castiel in the eye, it’s impossible to miss the emotion in them. He looks scared but intent, as though he’s reached the same breaking point as Castiel and is determined to talk about what happened before either of them lose their nerve.

Castiel hands him his keys, and it feels like jumping all over again. He’s so resigned to the freefall that he’s wholly unprepared for someone to yank him back onto solid ground.

“I’ll drive you back, Cas,” Sam says, snatching the keys right out of Dean’s palm. Dean looks just as bewildered by it as Castiel feels.

“But I—” he starts, clearly wanting to take a stand but uncertain how, and Mary looks on in confusion as he opens and closes his mouth like a grounded carp. He visibly swallows.

“We’ll meet you at home,” Sam says, his hand settling heavily on Castiel’s shoulder, and the grip that feels more like a command than comfort combined with the the forced cheerful tone of his voice sets off alarm bells in Castiel’s mind. 

But despite his effort, he can’t find even one good reason to argue that wouldn’t expose the truth before they’ve hashed it out. Neither, it seems, can Dean.

“Yeah, okay,” Dean says at last, and looks back at Castiel. His hands shift at his sides, shoulders raising slightly in the prelude to a hug that never comes. “Try to get some rest on the way, yeah?”

“Alright,” Castiel tells him, and lets Sam steer him into the passenger seat of his own truck.

 _At least this gives us time_ , he thinks to himself as he waits for Sam to get behind the wheel. If he’s being honest with himself, he needs it, to find the right words, the right approach.

He can feel Dean watching them as Sam starts up the car and pulls out onto the road, and his longing trails behind them, timid and shimmering gold as it strains after Castiel’s grace.

***

It’s unusual for Castiel to spend an extended amount of time alone with Sam.

Despite the fact that he considers Sam his brother and one of the best friends he’s ever known, Castiel has always found him a little harder to get a read on than Dean. Under normal circumstances, it’s not a problem, but in this moment, Castiel has no idea how to talk to him. How to look at him. How to exist in his orbit. 

Sam was there in that barn tonight, after all. He heard Castiel as plainly as Dean did. It takes Castiel far longer than he’d like to admit to realize that Sam’s insistence that he drive Castiel home might be related to the very same topic he’d been hoping to broach with Dean. 

The tension in the car is enough to make Castiel’s stomach churn.

Sitting in the passenger seat of his truck, the radio crackling quietly as they slip through dark streets and onto the highway, Castiel watches Sam from the corner of his eye and wonders how long it will take for him to say whatever it is that he’s been struggling to verbalize since they left the farm.

With every passing moment, the silence grows more obtrusive, and Castiel is at a loss for how to breach it. They’ve been on the road for almost an hour before Sam finally speaks.

“What you said back there,” he starts, hands shifting restlessly on the steering wheel as his eyes flick to the side. “You know we all love you too, right?”

Castiel’s shoulders sink with his relief, his whole body unwinding at the realization that he’s been worried over nothing, that Sam’s discomfort was merely concern over the thought that Castiel might not know how much the Winchesters care about him, and that his true meaning had gone over Sam’s head. He sinks back in his seat, finally letting go of the tension that’s been growing for the entire drive.

“Of course, Sam.”

“You’re our brother.”

Castiel’s mouth twitches before he can control himself. The tension comes back full-force.

“I think of you that way, too, Sam,” he says carefully. “Thank you.”

“Dean feels the same,” Sam adds, tone pointed as he glances over at Castiel again. His knuckles are white where he’s gripping the wheel. “He’s... he...” Sam sighs and shakes his head minutely. “Listen, I hope I’m not way off base here, but... you get how it came across, right? What you said? The way you said it?”

Castiel is tired and aching, and in this moment, he finds that he fervently misses the use of his wings. He wonders if lying about this is worth the effort when he knows it’s all going to come out tomorrow anyway. He decides against it. It’s not as though he’s betraying Dean’s confidence by simply confirming his own feelings, and he’d rather not lie to Sam more than he absolutely has to.

Resolved, he looks fully at Sam.

“Yes,” he says.

Sam’s eyes widen, as though he’d still half-expected otherwise.

“You—”

“Yes, I know how it sounded.”

Sam doesn’t reply, but Castiel can see him thinking. A crease forms in his brow as he gnaws insistently at the inside of his cheek. Castiel refrains from continuing until Sam has had time to process.

“So, when you— you meant that—”

He stumbles over his words in a way that Castiel has never seen him do. It makes him unbearably nervous, and he talks around the point in the hope that it will be enough.

“You’ve been a far better brother to me than any I’ve known before, and I’ve grown to love Mary through you and Dean. Her importance to the two of you makes her important to me, and we’ve become quite close in the time since she came back.”

The truck’s tires _thwack_ over a carelessly discarded soda can, and the radio fades in and out, and Sam’s jaw tenses and releases in rapid succession. Castiel waits. 

“And Dean?” Sam prompts.

It’s still tempting to deflect. Habit formed is difficult to shake loose, no matter how damaging, how foolish. Castiel pushes past the urge.

“I love Dean with everything I have.”

“You’re in love with him.”

The way Sam says _in love_ makes it sound like the kind of work that people avoid at all costs, like shifting a boulder that’s far too heavy and more trouble than it’s worth. Castiel can’t help but bristle at the thought that what he feels for Dean could be anything but good.

“Yes,” he says simply. “I am.”

Sam’s grip tightens on the wheel as he looks over at Castiel, a pained expression aging his features.

“Cas...”

“You knew, though. Didn’t you? That’s why you wanted to drive me back tonight.”

“I didn’t really believe it until now.”

Studying him thoughtfully, Castiel thinks over his behavior since they left the barn and finds himself smiling. _Of course_ , he thinks to himself. The countless stories planted in his head by Metatron have been largely useless, but in this instance, they’ve finally given him some insight.

“Sam, are you planning to give me an 'if you hurt him, I’ll kill you' speech?”

He raises his hands, making air quotes around the phrase, but Sam doesn't smile. In fact, his frown only grows more pronounced. 

“That’s not... Cas, what do you think is going to happen here? You think Dean is going to react well to this? That he’ll say he feels the same?”

“I—”

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Cas, but c’mon, man. He’s not—” Sam sighs, pained. “Dean loves you. He does. But he loves you the same way I do. You’re our brother. He finds out you’re into him, he’s going to freak out, and he’s going to lash out, and you’re both gonna be miserable.”

“You really think that?”

It’s almost funny, how certain Sam is. If it weren’t such a clear violation of Dean’s trust, Castiel would tell him about the years of longing, the constant pull he feels from Dean’s soul, reaching for his grace. It’s been there since the averted apocalypse, though it’s only since he was human that Castiel has understood what it meant. Though it’s been unspoken, Castiel knows that what he feels is reciprocated. Has been for a long time.

Sam just gives him a look of pity.

“Cas, I’m sorry. But for one thing, Dean’s straight. He’s just not interested in men like that. That’s not going suddenly change just because you love him.”

To his credit, Sam does seem sincerely apologetic. Castiel just can’t quite fathom how someone could spend their entire life living in close quarters with someone and be unaware of such a fundamental truth about them. He does know that Dean tries to hide his interest in men--he’s not completely oblivious, no matter what some might say—but he’s always assumed that Sam saw through the charade as easily as he did. It’s disconcerting to learn that he was so wrong.

Although, it’s possible that Dean’s guard is a little lower around Castiel than it is around his brother. Perhaps Sam hasn’t realized because Dean’s been careful not to let him see all of the clues that Castiel has been privy to; perhaps the close contact Castiel has had with Dean’s soul has made something well-hidden seem as though it’s barely under the surface.

“What if you’re wrong?” Castiel asks him. It’s a dangerous question, but he needs to know.

“I’m not.”

“Humor me, Sam. Please.”

Sam chews on his lip and flicks on the indicator, easing them off the interstate and into an empty weighstation. In the silence that follows, he turns in his seat to look Castiel in the eye.

“Even if I was wrong,” he says, tone careful and even, “even if Dean was interested in men, or if he felt the same way… Cas. You’re his best friend. You’ve been through so much together.” 

“I was under the impression that relationships based on friendship were far more likely to be successful,” Castiel says.

Sam huffs without humor, lifting his brow.

“Sure,” he says. “With regular people, or people who are actually…”

“Actually what?”

“People who are... capable of maintaining mature relationships."

“And you think I’m not capable?”

“I think Dean isn’t. He’s not wired for commitment. Every time he’s tried, it all falls apart, and everyone gets hurt. I wouldn’t want that for either of you.”

Sam sighs.

“The two of you… you don’t just have history, Cas, you have _baggage_ , and that only means it’ll hurt you both worse when it all blows up. You’ve gotta see that. Look at how miserable you both are when you fight with each other now, just as friends, and think how much worse that would be if you tried to be something more.”

For a long moment, Castiel considers him. He can’t deny that it hurts to learn that Sam has so little faith in the two of them, but he does appreciate the fact that he cares so much.

“Thank you, Sam.”

“Of course,” Sam shoots him another apologetic look and reaches across the console to pat him on the shoulder. It’s infuriatingly patronizing, and Castiel uses every ounce of his self control to refrain from reminding Sam that he’s a celestial being. “I _am_ sorry about this, Cas. I really… I'm sorry things aren't different. I am. But it’s gonna be a lot easier on you if you just try to move on. Don't put this on Dean, okay? For all of our sakes.”

His hand squeezes Castiel's shoulder, and somehow, though he knows the action is meant to be one of comfort, Castiel finds it makes him furious. He tempers his reaction as best he can. _He means well_ , he tells himself, taking a moment to find the best way to respond without snapping. _He only wants us to be happy._

“I appreciate the advice, and your concern,” Castiel tells him.

“Anytime, Ca--”

“But,” Castiel continues, and Sam’s brows shoot up toward his hairline.

“But?”

“There’s no moving on from this,” he says.

Sam sighs.

“Cas--”

“I love him, Sam. And if our conversation tomorrow goes the way I’m hoping it will, I’m sure we’d both appreciate your support.”

Sam is quiet for a while. Tension is thick in the air.

“I’m sorry, Cas,” he finally says. “I can’t give it.”

Castiel’s skin prickles cold, and he feels something lodged in his throat. _I love you, I love all of you._ The words are still there, digging in with claws he’d never known they had. He swallows around them, and turns away from Sam to stare out into the quiet dark of the weigh station. His own reflection stares back at him, eyes glinting with hurt no matter how much he tries to tell himself that Sam’s opinion does not matter.

When Sam finally starts the car up again and eases them back out onto the road, Castiel closes his eyes and swallows down the hurt, dislodging the lump in his throat enough to speak.

“Then I’m sorry, too.”


	2. Chapter 2

Sam parks carefully when they arrive at the bunker, unused to the size of Castiel’s truck and apparently wary of scraping the bumper against one of the pillars that separate the too-narrow spaces. Castiel doesn’t bother to tell him not to worry about it. 

He’s fairly certain that Sam’s caution here has more to do with unease over their conversation and less to do with actual concern over the state of a truck that Dean has—more than once—referred to as a rusted-ass death trap.

Castiel doesn’t wait for him to shut off the engine before he climbs out. Sam scrambles to catch up with him.

“Cas?”

Castiel doesn’t reply; simply stops walking in the doorway and tilts his head to show that he’s listening. Despite his best efforts to consider Sam’s point of view, to understand and appreciate where he’s coming from, he’s still struggling to move past his impulse reaction. 

He’s hurt. 

Sam has hurt him. 

It’s a deeply unpleasant feeling, and though this is far from the first time he’s felt this way, he’s not certain he’ll ever get used to it.

“Are we good?” Sam asks, finally, and Castiel feels an infinitesimal twitch below his left eye. He suspects this is one of those moments when a regular person might give a half truth to spare their friend’s feelings, but—as Sam so recently pointed out—Castiel isn’t a regular person, and he’s feeling considerably less charitable than usual right now.

“No,” he says.

“Cas, you’ve gotta--”

“I don’t have to do anything, Sam. I… appreciate you sharing your concerns, but this is where your input ends. I’m going to speak with Dean, and if you think you have even the slightest chance of stopping me, you don’t know me as well as I thought you did.”

Sam’s expression shifts then, his pleading eyes giving way to a look so cold that it takes Castiel back to those awful months after he pulled him from the cage, and he feels a rush of guilt alongside the umbrage that’s already hanging over him. No wonder Sam doesn’t think he’s capable of maintaining a real relationship with Dean—he didn’t even recognize that he’d only brought half of Sam back from Hell.

He waits for Sam to say something along those lines, but to Castiel’s surprise, Sam doesn’t say anything at all. He just tosses Castiel his keys and steps around him to stalk from the garage, hitting the lights on his way.

Standing in the dark, Castiel listens to his retreating footsteps as they echo up the stairwell, and he feels it the moment that Dean hears them, too. The longing flares like a fire that’s found new fuel, bursting up and out, and Castiel follows it with his grace, all the way back to the bunker’s kitchen.

Sam is headed there, now. As tempting as it is to avoid spending any more time in his company, Castiel finds that he doesn’t want to risk him saying anything to discourage Dean before they’ve had a chance to talk. Steeling himself for the inevitably tense atmosphere that he’s headed toward, he swiftly makes his way up the stairs, catching up with Sam in the hallway outside the kitchen.

They share a brief moment of terse eye contact before they step inside.

Dean is alone, leaning with a faux-casual air against the kitchen counter while a huge pot of something that is either spaghetti sauce or chili bubbles away on the stovetop. It’s late—edging in on one in the morning—but the brothers had forgone dinner in order to deal with Ramiel, and Castiel suspects that Dean had needed to keep himself busy once he arrived back at the bunker.

His eyes dart toward Castiel’s stomach for a split second before skittering away to settle on Sam, and it takes Castiel a moment to realize that he’d never dealt with the blood that had soaked through his shirt and smeared over his trenchcoat. He cleans both with a thought, and sits at the table before the exertion can make him stumble, feeling the still-healing wound throb with the motion.

Even though he’s forced his attention elsewhere, Dean’s longing seems stronger than ever now that he’s laid his eyes on Castiel. Castiel feels almost dizzy with it. 

“You guys take the scenic route?” Dean asks as Sam walks over to peer into the pot.

“Had to stop for gas, and then there was an overturned produce truck just outside Mankato. Got stuck waiting for the road to be cleared.”

Sam doesn’t mention their unscheduled stop at the weigh station, and the sharp glance he directs at Castiel says in no uncertain terms that Castiel had better not mention it either. 

Castiel holds his tongue. It can wait. He can wait.

Dean, meanwhile, grunts in reply and takes a gulp from his beer, turning his attention back to the stove. “Must have just missed it. This is almost done.”

“Where’s Mom?”

“Said she had some loose ends to tie up. Wanted to clear out Wally’s motel room and swing by his sister’s place to let her know what happened. I dropped her off at her car back in Belleville.”

“She didn’t want any help?” Castiel asks, and Dean shakes his head.

“She said she’d handle it.”

He doesn’t look up from the pot.

“Well, is she coming back here when she’s done?” Sam asks, and Dean sighs. He sounds tired. Castiel hates that he’s been here on his own, stewing in his mother’s decision to take off again and overanalyzing what Castiel had said to the point of madness.

“I don’t know, Sam,” he says. “Maybe. Probably not. Who the hell knows what she wants to do.”

Dumping the spoon onto the counter, he picks up his beer. Castiel can feel him avoiding eye contact again, which only makes it more surprising when he finally stops. His gaze settles on Castiel, then flicks down to the now-clean cotton of Castiel’s shirt.

“You doing okay?”

He is, more or less. The wound stings, and there’s still something crawling in his veins, acidic and hot, but it’s nowhere near as uncomfortable as his conversation with Sam. He shrugs.

“I’ve been worse.”

Dean snorts.

“Considering some of the crap that’s happened to you this past year alone, that’s not exactly comforting.”

“I’m really okay,” Castiel tell him.

“Good,” Dean says, and gestures toward the stove. “Any point offering you some of this, or—?”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you, Dean.”

Dean shoots him the kind of quiet, lopsided smile that never fails to make Castiel feel warm all over. He smiles back, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sam frown.

“Don’t mention it.”

While the brothers eat, Castiel sits quietly at the end of the table and nurses the beer he couldn’t deny wanting. He doubts that he’s the only one who feels the growing tension as they slowly polish off second servings, but nobody says a thing.

Sam and Dean are both obviously desperate for sleep, but they each seem determined to outlast the other. More than ever, Castiel is convinced that Dean finally wants to talk about things just as much as he does.

Around three o’clock in the morning, Dean yawns for the tenth time in as many minutes and pushes up from his seat to dump his bowl in the sink.

“Okay, I’m out,” he announces, and drums his knuckles on the table. “Cas, you still gonna be here tomorrow?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Castiel tells him, and Sam sends a not-remotely-subtle glare in his direction.

“Right. Well.”

He gives an awkward little wave of the hand, thumps Sam on the back, and heads out of the room. Sam only stands up after they hear Dean’s bedroom door close a few minutes later. He pauses in the doorway on his way out.

“I _am_ sorry, Cas,” he says quietly. “But please... think about this. Think about the position you’ll be putting him in. You really love him? Spare him the trouble of turning you down.”

He leaves, then, and Castiel slumps in his seat. Angel or not, he’s exhausted by this day and everything it brought. He may not need sleep, but he does need to close his eyes and drift for a while, if only to keep from focusing on every negative thought that Sam has planted in his head.

His room in the bunker is sparse, though it’s more than he usually needs. 

When he walks inside he finds that someone has needlessly changed the sheets since the last time he spent the night. The book he’d been reading and left open and face down on the side table has been closed, a card slipped between the pages to mark his place. Castiel has no doubts about the identity of his mysterious housekeeper, and it warms him to the core.

He’s not alone in this, no matter what Sam believes. No matter how much Dean may have avoided the subject for these past years, he has been here. Dean has made his seldom-used bed, and he has marked the page of Castiel’s book with a phony business card for _Special Agent Beyoncé_ , and has spent enough time just _being_ in this room that his presence can still be felt inside it.

Castiel closes the door until it clicks, sliding his coat from his shoulders before hanging it on the hook and sitting down on the bed. The springs in the mattress creak and squeak as he plugs his cell phone in to charge. 

He’s more certain than ever that the time has come to stop pretending, but as he sits in quiet solitude, the question of how to begin the conversation with Dean nags at him.

Reaching out, he touches the book’s spine with his index finger as he tries to think of a viable course of action. It’s a thick and largely inaccurate treatise on acolytes of Aphrodite, and briefly, he considers writing a note on the back of the business card inside and leaving it on Dean’s bed in the morning. The idea comes attached to memories of teenaged film characters leaving juvenile notes in lockers. _Do you want to be my boyfriend? Yes, no, maybe?_

He can almost feel Dean’s embarrassment just at the idea, and smiles to himself at the thought of Dean rolling his eyes to disguise a blush.

Alternative approaches occur to him as he reclines against the headboard, but ultimately he decides that it doesn’t matter. Dean wants to address this just as badly as he does. At this point, he’s better off just being blunt.

Castiel doesn’t need sleep, but he’s edging close to something like it when the buzz of his cellphone across the side table startles him back into awareness.

His stomach swoops when he sees that it’s a message from Dean.

_Hey, are you busy?_

It’s a little after 5am, and Dean’s message is far too casual and vague to be about anything other than the obvious. Castiel stares at it for longer than he’d care to admit before he carefully types out a reply and stands to leave the room, leaving his coat where it hangs.

_No. I’ll come to you._

Still, he pauses with his hand on the doorknob, knowing that once he and Dean cross this particular threshold, no matter what happens, everything will change. As misguided as Sam is in his belief that Dean does not share the feelings that Castiel has harbored for so long, his fear that their entire dynamic could be thrown into upheaval is not unfounded.

Castiel’s memory is filled with enough stories of star-crossed lovers to know that sometimes, loving someone is not enough.

Though it pains him to think it, Castiel decides then and there that if Dean wants things to remain as they’ve been, if he is unwilling to admit to the longing that Castiel feels as clearly as he feels his own, he won’t try to convince him otherwise. If he must love Dean from afar to make him happy, he will.

He steels himself with a deep breath and steps out into the hallway to find Dean waiting for him, his expression guarded.

_Hey,_ he mouths, and glances toward Sam’s room, gesturing for Castiel to keep quiet before he nods in the opposite direction.

Silently, Castiel follows him through the halls until they slip outside into the chill February air. The moon is low, diffused by the overcast sky, and Castiel’s feet sink into the damp earth as they trek up the hillside beside the bunker. The higher they go, the further they can see. The milky light of approaching dawn is already starting to leech up from the horizon.

Dean doesn’t breathe a word, but Castiel can feel his determination with every step he takes.

At the hill’s peak, where the bunker’s flat rooftop emerges from the ground, Dean stops, turning in place to survey the view before moving to sit on the edge. Castiel perches beside him carefully, the brick and concrete cold through the thin fabric of his suit pants. It only makes him more aware of how warm Dean is. How close his hand is, splayed out on the brick between them.

“How’re you feeling?”

Dean’s already asked him this, more than once, but Castiel assumes that the repeated question is intended to break the silence more than anything else. Out here, he feels compelled to answer a little more honestly than before.

“Sore,” Castiel admits, shifting where he sits so as to stop the still-healing wound from twinging. “And somewhat tired.”

“Do you need anything?”

“It’s fine. Nothing that a few days of rest won’t fix.”

For a moment, Dean studies him, as though looking for some sign that Castiel is secretly dying, and Castiel studies him right back. He still looks as tired as he had earlier in the kitchen, but there’s an energy borne wholly of nervous anticipation thrumming under his skin, and it makes him come alive, more bright-eyed and kinetic than Castiel has ever seen him, even after a full night’s sleep.

“You’re sure?” Dean asks, and Castiel nods.

“Really, Dean. I’m okay.”

“Good,” Dean blows out a breath. “You, uh. You had me kinda worried back there.”

“I’d gathered.”

Dean huffs, and they fall back into silence. It’s easier, now, though. Something more settled, less fraught. Together, they watch an owl as it circles low, shrewd eyes seeking out some unlucky rodent in the grass below. It swoops, cutting a low arc before flying away with something writhing in its claws.

Dean exhales. Castiel sees his hand shift against the brick. His own fingers itch to bridge the distance.

“So,” Dean says after a while.

“So,” Castiel echoes, and sends him a sidelong look that has Dean laughing under his breath and glancing away to shake his head. “I assume you didn’t bring me out here to watch birds.”

“Maybe I did,” Dean says.

“I’d be willing, if that was your intention,” Castiel offers, hating himself for giving Dean an out when they’re so close to actually talking, but knowing that it’s better than making Dean feel cornered, even if it _was_ Dean who texted him in the middle of the night. As a compromise with himself, he adds; “But just so you know, I’d be equally willing to do just about anything else you were interested in.”

Dean looks at him slowly, and even in the moonlight his cheeks are visibly darker. He pulls his lower lip between his teeth before he speaks.

“I’m not, uh... I don’t really where to start, Cas. This isn’t… I didn’t count on any of this ever, y’know, being on the table.”

Even admitting this much aloud so quickly is more than Castiel really expected of him, and he raises his brow.

“Well, I’ve got some idea of where to start,” he offers, feigning confidence in the hope that some of it will transfer to Dean. “But if you’d rather work up to it—”

“Me, too,” Dean blurts out before he can finish, holding eye contact with such intensity that Castiel knows it’s taking a lot for him to do it. “What you said back there, I uh. Me too.”

Warmth spreads through Castiel’s chest, and he finds himself smiling. 

“Thank you, Dean.”

Somehow, the words seem to hit Dean like a physical blow. He slumps immediately, face crumpling into a troubled frown that he directs at his own feet, trailing in the dirt and overgrown grass.

“Don’t— don’t _thank_ me for that, Cas. That was— shit, that was the weakest goddamn—” He grits his teeth on a sigh, closing his eyes to rub at them with the heel of his palm. “You should’ve known already.”

“Would it help if I told you I did?”

Dean lowers his hand to stare at him.

“You knew?”

“Mm,” Castiel hums the affirmative and gives him the most reassuring smile he can manage. “Though it is nice to hear confirmation.”

“You knew,” Dean repeats, still staring at him, utterly stricken. “How— what the hell, Cas? Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“Because _you_ never did,” Castiel says simply.

“But I did!” Dean exclaims, his expression nothing short of incredulous. Castiel narrows his eyes.

“I can assure you, you did no such thing.”

“Maybe I didn’t spell it out how you did last night, Cas, but I’ve done just about everything but roll out the goddamn red carpet.”

“When?”

“You want a list? Purgatory, for one. Or that time with the angel tablet. And last year, when I— Man, I told you I’d— I was gonna— and I mean, it’s not like it hasn’t been obvious that you felt _something_ ,” Dean rambles, barely coherent, but Castiel thinks back on the times he’d mentioned and realizes that he’s been misinterpreting Dean’s tentative approach for years. “But I just— you never said anything, and you never stuck around, so I figured you didn’t have the equipment to deal with it, if you even realized what it was, so I just… I dunno, man. I took what I could get.”

It’s Castiel’s turn to feel stricken, and he stares at Dean with as much incredulity as Dean had directed at him moments ago.

“ _You_ knew,” he says.

“Yeah, _I_ knew. But I didn’t know _you_ knew, y’know?” Dean shakes his head with a helpless laugh. “Jesus fucking Christ. We _are_ on the same page now, right? About... about how...”

“Will you panic if I speak frankly?”

Dean gives him a flat look.

“No,” he says. Castiel nods once and turns to face him more fully.

“What I feel for you—”

“Okay, stop.”

Castiel rolls his eyes to the sky.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t panic,” he says.

“Shut up,” Dean laughs. “I’m not panicking, this is just— Cas, this is so goddamn stupid. We’ve been dumbasses.”

“It seems to be an unfortunate trend for us,” Castiel says, and, feeling bold, he gives in to a years-old desire and stretches out the fingers of his left hand to touch the fingers of Dean’s right where they’re spread out on the brick between them. Dean does not pull away.

“Seems that way, yeah,” Dean says, verging on breathless as he stares down at their hands. “So what d’you— what do you want to do about it?”

He’s barely finished asking the question before he moves to skim Castiel’s knuckles with his fingertips. His touch is light and exploratory, soft in such a way that it almost seems unconscious, though Castiel can feel his intense focus in the way that his eyes are trained on the motion.

It’s not the first time Dean has touched him like this—gently, lovingly—but the times before had come after near deaths and actual deaths and—

This is different. This is Dean sitting beside him in the early-morning quiet outside their home. This is Dean in the slow-growing light of approaching dawn, saying with his fingertips what he struggles to say with words.

This is Dean free of pretense or fear or impending danger, touching him just to do it, just because he _can_.

Castiel turns his hand, slowly, and Dean’s fingers keep moving, tracing over the lines in his palm as though he’s following a path he already knows by heart.

Watching him, Castiel realizes that he was a fool to think he’d ever be able to walk away from this.

“What I feel for you,” Castiel starts again, and hears Dean let out a heavy breath beside him, as though he needs to prepare himself for affection the way most would prepare for a fight, “is more than I could ever put into words. What I want, more than anything, is to show you.”

At last, Dean lets his fingers sink into the spaces between Castiel’s, pressing palm to palm.

“So show me.”

It’s easier than he’d ever anticipated to reach out with his free hand, to touch Dean’s cheek, to slide his fingertips back to sink into his hair and pull him close.

He feels something within him shake loose when their lips meet. Something that has been tightly coiled and suffocating him from within. It slips away with Dean’s quiet sigh, and for the first time in his existence, Castiel feels the relief of a craving wholly sated.

Though their kiss is slow, it feels urgent in a way that Castiel has never experienced. His own longing for _more_ mingles with Dean’s until he’s dizzy with it, their combined want growing, building, until the need is somehow even more desperate than it was before they started.

Fleetingly, he wonders how it’s possible for a hunger to grow more ravenous once fed, but when Dean’s teeth tug lightly on his lower lip before his lips trail over his cheek, he finds he doesn’t care.

“There’s more,” he hears himself saying. “I’ll keep showing you for as long as you’ll let me, in as many ways—”

With a broken sound, Dean kisses him again, and Castiel grips him tighter, holding on even when Dean finally pulls away to look at him.

“So we’re really doing this, huh?” Dean asks, voice so much softer than Castiel has ever heard it.

“It would seem so.”

Grinning, Dean looks away, and Castiel takes in the deep flush spreading up the column of his throat and over his cheeks. He looks so happy that Castiel can hardly contain himself. He trails his fingertips over the pink skin to feel the warmth, and tries not to think of how much time they’ve both wasted. Tries instead to think of what they have to look forward to.

Under his touch, Dean’s chest starts to shake, and Castiel pulls his hand back in concern before he realizes that Dean is laughing.

“What?”

“I was pissed at you an hour ago,” Dean tells him, shaking his head. “I mean, _seriously_ pissed.”

Castiel looks at him in confusion.

“You were?”

“I mean… The fuck were you thinking, saying that when you were bleeding out? You could’ve _died_ , you asshole, and I would have just had to live with knowing that I’d missed my shot for the rest of my life.”

Castiel blinks.

“I didn’t think of that,” he admits.

“Yeah, I know,” Dean says, and squeezes the hand that he’s still holding onto. “Anyway, it worked out okay, so I’m willing to look past it.”

“I appreciate that,” Castiel says. “It would be a shame to have any animosity between us, now that we’re ‘really doing this’.”

Dean seems to be of the same mind, smiling as he leans in again to press his lips to Castiel’s cheek, his jaw, the skin below his ear, but even though they’re delivered with a laugh, his next words leave Castiel cold.

“Man, it’s been a while since I had more than a weekend fling. Wonder how long it’ll take Sam to notice if we don’t say anything.”

He hadn’t exactly _forgotten_ what Sam said, but since following Dean outside, it’s been so far from his mind that he might as well have. Now, it all comes flooding back with startling clarity.

Castiel had known he’d need to tell Dean eventually, but the thought of bringing it up right now is anathema. He should be grateful, he supposes, that they had even these few brief moments of uncomplicated happiness, considering the lives they lead. He _should_ be grateful. He’s not.

Castiel sighs, closing his eyes and chasing Dean’s lips one last time before everything falls down around them. When he opens them, Dean is looking at him with a wrinkle in his brow.

“Cas?”

“He already knows.”

At once, Dean’s expression gives way to a look of such betrayal that it makes Castiel’s stomach sink. He drops his hands, giving Dean the space he assumes he’s going to demand once he’s heard everything that Castiel has to tell him.

“You told Sam?”

“He brought it up,” Castiel tells him quickly, and is immediately overcome with guilt that he tries in vain to quash. It’s true, after all. He shouldn’t feel guilty for being honest. But the knee-jerk reaction to shift Dean’s anger from himself to Sam has him feeling like a bad friend, as though he’s betraying Sam by passing the blame so easily.

“When?”

“While he was driving me back to the bunker. He wanted to know if I realized how it sounded when I said what I said.”

Dean’s eyes narrow, as though he can tell there’s more that Castiel is leaving out.

“And?”

“You should really ask—”

“I’m asking you.”

Castiel sighs.

“I told him that I did, and that I’d meant it, and he said that you’d react poorly once you understood.”

“Wow. Okay.”

It would be easy to stop there, to allow Dean to think that the conversation had not gone any further, at least until Castiel has time to find a way to convince Sam that this isn’t a mistake. It would be easy to buy himself that time. Castiel isn’t sure that it would be wise.

Tentatively, he reaches out to touch Dean’s wrist, looping his fingers around it loosely. He’s relieved when Dean lets him.

“When I told him that I didn’t believe that he was right, he said...” Castiel trails off, still reluctant to repeat Sam’s words even though he’s already made up his mind to do it. He only continues when Dean prompts him again with a raised brow. “He said that even if you _did_ return my feelings, we’d only hurt one another. That you’re not capable of maintaining a relationship. That it would inevitably fall apart, and we’d both be worse off for it.”

“That all?” Dean asks, his tone flat and angry, and Castiel feels a desperate need to fix it. He lifts one shoulder in a shrug.

“He’s also under the impression that you’ve never been interested in men. I didn’t disavow him of that belief, though I must admit that I expected him to be a little more observant than that.”

Dean snorts, and Castiel is relieved to see the hint of a smile on his face.

“Yeah, I dunno how he still hasn’t caught on. I barely even hide it.”

“It’s almost impressive.”

“Straight people are wild,” Dean says mildly, and the barely-there smile flickers and fades. His voice is too quiet when he finally speaks again, as though he’s afraid of the answer he’s going to get. “Do you think he’s right?”

“No, it seems fairly clear at this point that you’ve got _some_ interest in men,” Castiel says wryly, and allows another small smile at Dean’s amused huff before he answers seriously. “I think… I think that over the years, we’ve hurt each other to a spectacular degree as friends, so I don’t see how allowing ourselves a little happiness could possibly make things any worse than they’ve ever been before.”

Dean stares at him.

“You really suck at pep talks, you know that?”

Castiel rolls his eyes.

“I’m just saying, I’d rather take the risk than ignore this any longer.”

“Yeah, I’m with you there.” 

Sighing, Dean lies back against the roof and presses a hand to his brow as though his head is aching, and Castiel lies beside him, turning his head to watch for some sign that Dean has come to some decision. He’s not expecting it when Dean reaches out and takes hold of his hand again, but he’s thankful for it regardless.

“I just need to talk to Sam,” Dean says finally. “I think… look, you said it yourself. He thinks I don’t feel that way about you. He thinks I’m not even _capable_ of it. I just have to tell him the truth, and once he understands, he’ll come around.”

“I hope you’re right,” Castiel tells him, and Dean pulls his hand up to rest on his chest before tilting his head to look at him. Castiel can feel his pulse, steady beneath their entwined fingers.

“I’m right,” he insists.

“But if you’re not. If you speak with Sam, and he still thinks this is a bad idea… if being with me is going to cause a rift between the two of you, I—”

“Not gonna happen, Cas.”

“But if it does?”

Dean sighs again, then turns his head to stare up into the clouds above, stained pink by the rising sun. He squeezes Castiel’s hand.

“Then we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this from the airport on my way to Rome for Jibcon, because apparently that’s a thing that’s happening... hopefully all the formatting pastes properly—had to do this from my phone because the airport wifi thinks Ao3 is an inappropriate website. If there are wonky italics I’ll have to fix them when I arrive! Hope you all enjoy the update :)

There’s a new synchronicity to them as they rise together, dusting themselves off in the pink light of dawn before starting back toward the bunker’s door without a word between them. Dean walks slightly ahead. Castiel watches him move with an interest more open than he’s ever allowed himself before. He’s beautiful—that much isn’t a revelation—but there’s something easier about him now. Less tense. His shoulders are lower, his muscles loose and sinuous, comfortable in a way that Castiel has never seen.

He’s still admiring the casual grace with which Dean moves when they reach the steep final stretch, and Dean lets out an undignified squawk, his arms pinwheeling as he slips and scrambles on loose earth. “Shit,” he grunts, taking the rest of the decline at a half-run before coming to an abrupt halt once he reaches the flat roadside. The way he tries to mask his fluster, as though he’d intended every moment of what has just transpired, endears Castiel to him more than he’d thought was still possible. He smiles, delighted at the realization that no matter how much he loves Dean, there’s somehow always potential for more, and Dean turns to look at him. The tips of his ears burn red.

“Shut up,” he says, trying—and failing—to glare at Castiel, and Castiel just grins wider, sidestepping the loose stones and making his way down to the road with ease.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Sure you didn’t, chuckles. You’re just lucky I was in front or it would’ve been you sliding downhill on your feathery ass instead.”

His feigned offence is bizarrely provocative, and obliquely, Castiel wonders if everything will be like this now that he’s felt Dean’s lips on his own—if every moment between them will be charged in this way, so that Castiel will be unable to carry on a conversation without feeling the overwhelming need to bridge whatever small distance he must to feel them again. It’s a good thing, he muses as he takes the last few steps toward Dean, that he’s allowed.

As though he’s thinking the same thing, Dean’s eyes drop down to his lips as he nears, visibly distracted even as he lifts his chin, defiant in his attempt to play offended.

Castiel just lifts his brow and slots one foot between Dean’s, pulling him close to kiss the look away. Only when he feels Dean begin to melt against him does he stop, and Dean’s painted-on frown is back within seconds, even less convincing than before.

“That’s not gonna work every time you want to distract me,” he says.

“In that case, it would behoove me to test the limits,” Castiel replies.

Dean snorts, and Castiel is oddly relieved to realise that not everything Dean does is wildly attractive, after all. He finds he wants to kiss Dean again anyway. He does. Dean lets out an amused hum against his lips, and Castiel swallows the sound, humming right back.

“Can’t argue with that,” Dean murmurs when he pulls away, and glances up as a few stray raindrops begin to fall. He sighs. “Probably our cue. We should go back in before Sam gets up, anyway.”

Even if Castiel does want to spend a little more time out here in the peaceful morning haze, rain or not, he knows Dean is right. If they wait too long, Sam will catch them walking back inside together, and though Dean is an adult and Castiel is several million years beyond even that, he can’t help but feel apprehensive at the notion of being judged. Once the brothers have spoken, Castiel will gladly deal with whatever consequences arise. Until then, he’d rather steer clear of any further confrontations with Sam.

Reluctantly, they separate and descend the steps to the bunker, stepping inside just as the sky opens up. They both pause and look out as the rain moves in, a clearly delineated wall that is swallowed up quickly by the downpour as the clouds move across the sky.

Dean’s hand brushes Castiel’s before he closes the heavy door, sealing the noise of pouring rain outside and plunging the bunker into silence. As they make their way down the stairs into the map room, Castiel sees Dean’s shoulders tightening with every step, all the casual comfort from outside draining out of him, and by the time they reach the floor he’s every bit as tense as usual. It breaks something in Castiel to see, and he wishes that he could risk some small touch, if only to bring back a little of the ease he’d seen before.

The silence only seems more intense as they move through the bunker. Every footstep seems thunderous; every squeaking hinge an alarm designed specifically to raise Sam from slumber, to send him barrelling out into the hallway to tell Castiel in no uncertain terms that he’s fooling himself if he thinks he and Dean can have this, that they’re making a mistake, that this is doomed from the start, destined for failure, destined to crash and—

“Hey,” Dean’s voice is pitched low, but it pulls Castiel from his spiralling thoughts all the same, and he lifts his gaze to realise they’ve made it as far as Dean’s room without his notice. His own room is back the way they’ve come. He looks over his shoulder toward it, then back when Dean’s fingertips brush against his own. “You good?”

“I wasn’t paying attention,” he admits, and rocks back on his heel. “I should rest.“

Dean’s hand closes around his own before he can move any further. Castiel looks down at it in surprise.

“Dean?”

“Just—c’mon,” he says, and pulls.

They’re inside Dean’s room before Castiel has time to consider why following might not be a sensible decision in this moment, and then the door is shut firmly, and Castiel learns just how firmly when he’s pressed between it and Dean. Between one moment and the next, Dean’s mouth is sealed over his own. This kiss is deeper than before, more frantic, and Castiel feels it resonating through his entire being—the warmth of Dean’s lips on his, the scratch of his stubble, his callused palm curving around Castiel’s jaw, Dean’s thumb touching the place where their mouths are joined. His tongue, his hips, his soul. Castiel feels everything at once. It’s overwhelming. He wants more.

When Dean pauses for breath, Castiel makes a sound of protest.

“You can rest in here,” Dean tells him, but Castiel only nods, dazed. He tilts his chin up until Dean takes the hint and dips forward to kiss him again. By the time Dean’s words register, they’ve moved halfway across the room.

“This isn’t resting,” he says, but makes no effort to stop, instead sliding his hands up under the hem of Dean’s shirt to grip him more tightly, skin to skin. Dean’s teeth close briefly around his lower lip at the touch.

“You can rest after.”

“Yes,” Castiel agrees, and Dean hauls him impossibly closer, only shifting out of reach when they suddenly arrive at his bed, and he sits heavily. For a moment, he just stares up at Castiel and longs, the feeling spilling out of him with such intensity that Castiel is breathless with it. Helpless.

“I’m here,” he says, voice raw as Dean finally reaches out to touch him, his hands tugging at Castiel’s shirt and slipping underneath. “I’m right here.”

His fingers trail electric heat from Castiel’s lower back around to his sides, thumbs pressing lightly into the skin of his hips as he pulls Castiel closer, pulls him to stand between his knees, toys with the buttons of his shirt. He leans in and presses his mouth to Castiel’s stomach, breath hot through the thin cotton, and for a time, Castiel is lost in the sheer indulgence of it, but then—

Pain. Liquid fire shooting through his veins, out out out from the still-healing wound from Ramiel’s attack and spreading, shattering, splintering like shrapnel that reaches the very edges of his body and beyond, into the ether, where even his wingtips curl with it, aching. Burning.

Dean yanks his hand back so fast that Castiel almost thinks he feels it, too.

“Cas, what— did I hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” he says on impulse, but the pain radiates even as it dulls, like the reverberating hum of a church bell. He feels it from toes to teeth.

“Bullshit. You flinched.”

Dean’s eyes are sharp with worry despite his flushed cheeks, and Castiel touches the warm skin, trying to bring Dean back to him, trying to bring himself back to the moment before. He focuses on the warmth. It helps.

“Really, Dean. I’m fine.”

For a moment, it seems as though Dean believes him, but then he hesitantly touches the buttons of Castiel’s shirt before dropping his hands away.

“So you won’t mind if I take a look.”

Castiel knows, without a shadow of doubt, that if things were the other way around, Dean would make some joke about Castiel only wanting to get him out of his clothes. Dean looks so stricken that Castiel can’t even bring himself to attempt humor. He sighs, unbuttoning his shirt until Dean takes over, and then he just waits as his skin is exposed to the cool air.

Beneath Dean’s hands, his stomach muscles jump and twitch with every millisecond of accidental contact, but despite Dean’s undivided attention, he gains no enjoyment from any of it. Dean is staring. He looks horrified.

“Cas…”

He lifts his hand, almost touching but stopping just shy, and Castiel can’t help but wonder if he’s reliving the previous evening. If he’s seeing beyond the raised red flesh around the still-broken skin of the lance’s point of entry, his mind’s eye supplying vivid memory of the toxic black bile that had bled sluggishly from him last night.

“It barely hurts,” Castiel reassures him when he doesn’t say anything else, and Dean glances up with a doubtful look in his eye.

“It hurts some, though, right?”

“Barely,” Castiel repeats.

“I hardly even touched you and you flinched."

“I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all. It’s superficial, really.”

“Don’t give me this just a flesh wound crap,” Dean snaps. “I’ve seen you shake off a dozen bullets without breaking a sweat, so why hasn’t this already healed?”

Before Castiel can answer, Dean pulls him down beside him, making him sit, and Castiel sighs. He looks down at his stomach to take in the broken skin. Dean’s not overreacting—it doesn’t look good, and it really is taking a long time to knit back together, but Castiel felt the poison purged from his system before they’d left the barn, and he has no doubt that he’ll be fully recovered within another day or two.

Still, Dean is looking at him as though he’s still bleeding out. It’s not an expression that Castiel is eager to witness.

“The poison wasn’t just eating into my body,” he explains carefully, reaching out to catch hold of Dean’s hand before he can shift it too far away. “It affected me on a metaphysical level, and I have to allow my grace to restore fully before it will heal my physical wounds. That’s all. It shouldn’t be longer than a couple of days.”

Dean frowns at him.

“You said you needed rest,” he says, and shakes his head at himself. “Shit. And here I am trying to—“

“I wouldn’t be here with you if I didn’t want to be.”

“Still. You’ve gotta tell me shit like this.”

“You couldn’t have done anything.”

“Not the point, Cas. If you’re serious about… about showing me? This is how you do it.”

“By telling you that it’s taking longer than I’d like for an injury to heal?”

“By letting me take care of you, you dick.”

Castiel can’t help but smile. He lifts his palm to press against Dean’s chest. His heart thumps beneath Castiel’s palm.

“I hope you realise that that will have to go both ways,” Castiel says, and Dean huffs.

“Fine.”

“Fine,” Castiel says, and slides his hand up to Dean’s face, cupping his cheek and stroking his lips with his thumb. His heart swells when Dean presses a light kiss to it, then flops back against his pillow.

“Look at us,” Dean says, looking up at him. “First kiss, first fight, first make-up, and it’s not even eight in the morning. That’s gotta be a new record.”

Castiel just levels him with a dubious look.

“That was hardly our first fight.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know,” Castiel smiles at him, and looks toward the door. “It might be wise to go get some rest in my own room.”

“In a minute, just—” Dean falters for a moment before he finds his footing and continues. “Before you go. Will you do me a favour?”

“Anything.”

“Let me…” Dean chews his lip, looking down at Castiel’s still-exposed stomach. “Can I stitch you up? Hell, even just let me slap a bandage on you. I know you said it’s— I just— I can’t—“

“Of course.”

Dean heaves out a breath, his eyes shifting away as though he’s embarrassed to have even asked, and Castiel catches him before he can stand. He kisses the corner of his mouth, then the rise of his cheek, letting his hand linger against his jaw after he pulls away.

“Thank you,” he says.

Shrugging, Dean pushes up from the mattress and heads for his still-packed duffel, digging through it until he finds the old first-aid kit inside. Though he’s making every effort to appear nonchalant, Castiel can see how much he needs to do this. How much he needs to do something. It’s there in the way he sorts through the contents of the kit, picking things out and reading labels before tossing them to the side; in the way he carefully sets the bandages he wants on his desk. He’s focused. Determined.

Moving slowly to avoid the possibility of straining his stomach, which has resumed hurting constantly now that his attention has been drawn back to it, Castiel shifts to sit on the edge of the bed, planting his feet firmly on the floor. It takes Dean a while to return with the things he needs, and when he does he seems to debate with himself of the best angle to approach this from. Finally, he kneels by Castiel’s legs, tossing bandages onto the mattress beside him.

Looking down at him, Castiel smiles. Dean glances up and flushes redder than the morning sky.

“What?” Castiel asks.

Dean clears his throat and glances away, a smile tugging at his lips.

“It’s probably too soon for the joke I was just gonna make.”

“I don’t think too soon is applicable to any aspect of what’s happening between us, Dean.”

Dean snorts.

“I’ll give you that,” he says, and shuffles a little closer, resting one hand on Castiel’s leg for balance. “Still didn’t plan on bein’ on my knees today.” He squeezes Castiel’s thigh and bites the inside of his cheek, eyes flashing in the low light as he meets Castiel’s gaze. “Or maybe I did.”

At once, Castiel feels his own face heating. He swallows convulsively.

“Point taken.”

Dean seems thrilled by the reaction, and he laughs to himself as he uncaps a tube of antiseptic. He’s the picture of smug satisfaction, clearly pleased with himself for making Castiel flush. Like many moments they’ve shared over the past nine years, it feels like a challenge. For once, Castiel decides to take it.

“Would you like to engage in fellatio, Dean?”

Dean stops laughing.

“You did not just ask me that,” he says, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Castiel’s knee in defeat. “Fellatio. Jesus Christ.”

“I’ve wondered about it,” Castiel tells him, ignoring his comment. “Whether it would be as enjoyable to give as to receive. If you’d be amenable to try it sometime, I’d—”

“Cas, can we maybe have this conversation when I’m not ten inches from your gross infected-looking stomach wound?”

Blanching, Castiel gives a tight nod.

“Apologies.”

Dean squeezes his thigh again.

“Not saying I’m not interested, Cas. I, uh. I’m very interested. Just…” He looks at the wound again, a pained expression on his face. “Staring at the evidence of your near-death experience is kind of the opposite of a turn on for me.”

“I can’t say the same for my current view. You look very good from this angle.”

Closing his eyes briefly, Dean seems to steel himself.

“Okay, new rule? Quit saying hot shit while I’m doing this. It’s confusing my junk.”

“I’ll save it for later.”

“Good plan.”

Carefully, Dean dabs the ointment onto the worst areas of Castiel’s stomach, his fingers gentle as he uses tape to fix a square bandage over it. He doesn’t get up right away when he’s done, taking a moment to trail his fingers over Castiel’s skin. The touch is undemanding, and Castiel is certain that Dean is merely aiming for comfort—his own, and Castiel’s, in equal measure. Proving to himself that Castiel is alive and warm beneath his hands; proving to Castiel that Dean is here for him.

His soul is in his fingertips, and Castiel feels it shifting beneath his skin. It’s overwhelming. Castiel wonders if Dean feels it, too.

“Thank you,” he says again, and hopes Dean hears everything in the words, because gratitude is not enough, but even love falls short.

When Dean meets his eyes, Castiel is certain that he’s understood.

He’s reluctant to leave after, though he knows he should, and they spend several long minutes kissing by the door until Castiel finally pulls away to head back to his room. Dean’s fingers trail down his arm as he goes, leaving fire in their wake, and Castiel carries the feeling with him, almost floating down the hall even though his stomach still stings.

***

Sam is waiting in the hallway when Castiel makes his way out of his own room later that morning, leaning against the wall and looking at something on his phone. The way he seems to force his gaze to remain locked on the screen rather than acknowledge Castiel’s arrival is a dead giveaway that his presence here is calculated.

So is the fact that he’s been standing here for almost twenty minutes. It might be childish, but Castiel has been letting him stew. He’d only been back in his room for an hour when he’d heard Sam’s door creak open, and since then, he’s been laying back and playing out dozens of variations of the argument they’d had in the car. Half of the fantasies had led to him saying something so profoundly convincing that Sam changed his mind and apologised for his initial reaction. The other half involved him telling Sam, in increasingly colourful ways, to go fuck himself.

Now, he pulls his door shut sharply, relishing the way that the heavy thud startles Sam into lifting his gaze.

“Morning, Cas,” he says with forced cheer, and the dishonesty of it needles at Castiel almost as much as their entire conversation the night before. He grits his teeth and does not give in to his desire to start an argument. Castiel isn’t sure he’s ever told anyone to go fuck themselves, before, and he’d really rather not have to say it to Sam.

“Good morning,” he says instead.

Dean’s bedroom door is closed when they pass it, and Sam clings to him like a shadow all the way to the kitchen. He doesn’t protest when Castiel starts up the coffee—by some strange twist of fate, it seems that Castiel is the only one who can coax the ancient percolator to make anything remotely potable. The water bubbles. Sam doesn’t say a word; just waits for Castiel to pour a cup, and then moves to get his own.

Dean finds them in the library an hour later, shuffling in with his gray bathrobe hanging loose around his shoulders, his slipper-clad feet dragging on the floor. For a moment, Castiel tenses. It’s entirely possible that after he left Dean alone, he’d started to second guess himself, and he braces for the possibility that Dean regrets the shift between them. The worry doesn’t last.

Dean’s eyes seek his out, and they’re just as full of love as they were when they’d parted. He walks right over and puts a warm hand on Castiel’s shoulder as he reaches past to pluck his recently-refilled mug from the table.

“You better not have been up all night,” he says.

“We can’t all sleep until noon,” Sam says, eyeing Castiel’s mug as Dean downs half of the contents in one go. “There’s a fresh pot in the kitchen.”

“I don’t mind,” Castiel says.

“See? Cas doesn’t mind,” Dean says, and puts the mug back down before he squeezes Castiel’s shoulder. “What’re you reading?”

“We’ve been looking into possible leads on Kelly Kline.”

“Any luck?”  
“Not yet.”

“Okay, well… I’m gonna grab some more coffee. You guys want refills?”

Castiel shakes his head, but Sam stands, picking up both mugs.

“I’ll give you a hand,” he says, practically herding Dean out of the library. He’s being about as subtle as the moose Crowley likes to compare him to, but Castiel doesn’t react. Instead he stands, too, pushing his chair in before picking up the laptop he’s been working on.

“I’ll be in my room,” he says.

Sam looks surprised, but he can’t feel what Castiel can. There’s tension rolling off Dean in waves, and the squeeze he delivered to Castiel’s shoulder communicated everything that he couldn’t say out loud—he’s still with him, and he’s going to talk to Sam. He’s going to tell Sam. Now.

Making his way back toward his room, Castiel tries to dampen his angelic hearing as much as he can, but it’s easier said than done. In spite of his efforts, he hears Sam putting their two mugs down on the counter; Dean opening the cabinet to take out another; the scrape-whine-rattle of the top drawer as one of them pulls it open to fetch a teaspoon.

All the while, Castiel feels Dean’s nerves ratcheting higher and higher. His fear is all tangled up with an involuntary longing for Castiel to be with him through this, but he’d been adamant that he do this alone, so although it pains him, Castiel does not go to him. He just waits.

The silence between Dean and Sam stretches on for so long that he almost flinches when Sam speaks.

“I spoke to Mom this morning. She’s spending the rest of the day with Wally’s sister, but she said she’d head back here tonight.”

“Assuming she doesn’t line up another hunt by then,” Dean says. He sounds resigned, as though he’s moved beyond disappointment and into acceptance that he’ll never get the relationship with Mary that he needs so deeply, and it breaks Castiel’s heart to hear. “I’m thinking pancakes. You want?”

“I already ate.”

“Yeah, but did you eat pancakes?”

There’s a pause.

“Fine. I’ll take one. Singular.”

“Deal.”

The fridge opens. Closes. Dean plonks something—a whisk, Castiel thinks—onto the counter, and starts cracking eggs.

“So. Last night,” Sam starts a few minutes later, as Dean starts mixing. The whisk sings against the sides of the metal bowl. “That was a lot.”

“Astute observation there, little brother. That college education really picks its moments to shine through.”

Castiel doesn’t bother to suppress his eye roll at Dean’s knee-jerk sarcasm, and from Sam’s flat reply, he’s not the only one who’s tired of it. He suspects that even Dean is tired of it, if his recent tendency to give honest responses even when they’re difficult is anything to go by.

“Dean,” Sam says.

With a sigh, Dean stops whisking.

“Yeah. I know,” he says, and his voice shifts, as though he’s turned around. Castiel can’t tell if it’s to face Sam or to hide from him, though at a guess, he thinks—for once—it was the former. "It was a lot.”

“Look, you probably don’t want to hear this, but… what Cas said last night in the barn. I was talking to him on the drive, and—“

“Yeah, I know. He—”

“You know?” There’s a dull thump as Sam sits on one of the swivelling seats at the table.

Dean flicks on the gas stove, igniting one of the burners, and his voice shifts again—definitely turning away, now.

“Yeah. We talked.”

The strangest feeling comes over Castiel, then—something restless, anticipatory but terrified, and he can’t quite tell where Dean’s nerves end and his own begin, because this is it. Not for the first time, he wishes he could suppress his angelic abilities to a far greater degree than he is able. He should not be listening to this. He doesn’t know if he can listen to this. Not without wanting to be there at Dean’s side, where he belongs.

“When?”

“This morning. You weren’t up yet.”

There’s a long pause, and in it Castiel can feel Dean’s fear growing. His uncertainty as to how to continue this conversation gets bigger, grows teeth. It’s almost a relief when Sam speaks again, directing the conversation.

“That explains it,” Sam says.

“Explains what?”

“All the—“ there’s another pause, and Castiel imagines that Sam is gesturing, searching for words. “Y’know. How you were acting out in the library. Whatever that was with the coffee.”

“Oh,” Dean says, and takes a shaky breath. “Yeah, so about that, the thing is—“

Sam doesn’t let him finish.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m relieved you’re taking this so well. I figured you’d lose it the second you found out.”

“Wow, nice to know how little you think of me.”

“No, I don’t— I just figured you’d be, y’know… all ‘Dean' about it.”

“The hell is that supposed mean?”

“Dean, every time a guy hits on you, you freak out. Remember Aaron?” There’s silence for a moment. Castiel can practically hear Dean screaming in his head, because true as it may be, he suspects that the freaking out that Sam has witnessed has been less panic and more fluster. “Not to mention how grossed out you get every time some motel clerk mistakes us for a couple.”

“Dude, you’re my goddamn brother, of course that grosses me out.”

“Yeah, and Cas is family, so I figured you’d be just as skeeved.”

“Cas isn’t my brother.”

“I guess. But, man… still didn’t think you’d be so chill,” Sam snorts quietly, the low laugh jarring when his next words make Dean’s soul shrink in on itself in shame. “Anyway, it’s a good thing you don’t swing that way.”

“Why’d you say that?”

“Seriously? Dude, you and Cas are a mess just as friends. But together? God, that would be a trainwreck. I can’t think of a worse couple, and I dated Ruby.”

Sam laughs again, like this is all a big joke, and Castiel grinds his teeth. He’s making things so much worse, and he’s completely oblivious. Even through the walls, he can feel Dean’s anger seething close to the surface.

“Did you seriously just compare Cas to Ruby?”

Sam’s cell phone starts to ring before he can respond, and while he answers, Dean’s longing reaches a fever pitch. It’s only seconds before hurt and anger and confusion and fear all wind together to wrap around it, turning the need to something bitter and awful, and when Castiel unravels it all he’s ruined by what he finds. Dean wishes the longing weren’t there at all. On some level, he’s thinking that his life—that all of their lives—would be easier if he didn’t feel this way about Castiel in the first place.

Castiel can barely breathe for the way it crushes him. To be loved and wanted and needed but simultaneously wished away.

He looks over at his coat, still folded neatly where he left it late last night, and knows he could leave right now. He could spare Dean the pain of asking him by doing it before he’s forced to.

It’s tempting to just do it. A year ago—even a week ago—he might have. But he’s done with making decisions on Dean’s behalf. They’re in this together. If Dean truly wants to call things off, if he wants last night to be the end, if he’s considered the cost and determined it greater than he’s willing to part with, then Castiel will respect that and walk away. But he won’t decide alone.

Crossing the room, he picks up the coat and shakes it out before slipping it back over his shoulders, then unlocks his cell. He types out a hasty message as he walks down the hall.

Garage. Need to talk.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can probably tell from the wordcount, this chapter got away from me. I'll tell you why in the end notes, but as a hint: note the rating change.
> 
> Thanks as always to Maria (aeli_kindara) for allowing me to upset her with these words first. Any mistakes are my own :)

During the apocalypse that never came, Castiel met a man whose heaven was a vast library. 

Bao Jianhong had been a scholar in life—a perpetual student even once reaching the top of his field—and his hunger for knowledge, for the joy of learning, did not ease once he passed through to the afterlife. The little corner of heaven that was his library was cluttered but comfortable, and the light that shone through the tall windows was gold as the hour before sunset, glittering off dust motes and making the whole space warm and welcoming. Even the smell of the place was soothing—lignin permeating the air with a faint hint of vanilla as the books on all their rows of shelves aged according to Jianhong’s memory.

Castiel had not intended to enter.

Sam and Dean had died mere minutes before, shot point-blank in a tacky motel room by two misguided hunters, and Castiel had been trying to weave himself through the ether and into the moving target that was Dean’s heaven. It was reckless to attempt it, considering his own standing among the angels at the time, but he’d hoped he could manage to reach the Winchesters before the other angels realized he was there. Of course, the moment he passed through the ether he felt the other angels stirring. If he didn’t find Dean’s heaven soon, he knew he’d need to find another way.

His previous three landings had been obviously wrong within milliseconds, but when he’d seen the books he’d paused. Perhaps this was Sam’s heaven; perhaps it was Dean’s. They’d both spent enough time in libraries for it to be a possibility that they had good memories of one like this, and despite Dean’s claims to the contrary, Castiel knew for a fact that he often read for pleasure.

So he’d checked the spines of the nearest books for their authors, hoping he’d find novels with familiar names like Vonnegut or Kerouac, or texts on supernatural beings and urban legends, or _something_ that would tie this place to Dean or Sam. Instead, he found books on world history, scientific journals, and countless biographies of every influential artist and writer under the sun. Every imaginable topic was covered—from molecular physics and evolutionary theory to the history of the piano and the social habits of birds of prey. Every subject but the occult.

Bao Jianhong had been halfway up a ladder when he’d noticed Castiel, and he descended fluidly, a book with a green cover tucked under one arm.

“Do you need help to find something?” he’d asked, evidently under the impression that this was his workplace, and Castiel shook his head, trying to dispel his disappointment.

“Nothing that can be found in a book,” he’d replied as he reached out with his grace, trying to find some hint of Dean’s soul that could lead him to the right heaven.

Jianhong smiled, his eyes crinkling around the edges.

“You’d be surprised.”

“Perhaps some other time,” Castiel had offered, and Jianhong nodded, holding the book close to his chest before telling Castiel that he’d find something interesting for him to read on his next visit. Castiel had no intention to ever return, but he’d thanked him anyway before he finally latched on to what felt like it might be the right location and flew.

The angels caught wind of his presence shortly after that, and he’d been forced to flee to Earth and contact Dean through a difficult-to-maintain spell instead. Jianhong and his library disappeared from Castiel’s mind immediately. The memory didn’t return to him until years later, walking into a library with Metatron to find his grace tucked into a copy of _Don Quixote._

It held that same smell of old books, deeper than in the bunker’s library for the sheer number of stacks that filled the space, and it washed over him at once. In his minds eye, he’d seen Jianhong’s library as clear as day. He’d remembered exactly how he’d felt in the moments he’d spent there—the unfamiliar panic, his desperation to find a way to reach Dean, the sense of impending disaster that had hovered like a fog over everything back then. He remembered the layout of the furniture; the pattern of the carpet on the floor; the copy of _The Vercelli_ that Jianhong had been retrieving from the high shelf.

In the library with Metatron, he’d known the name for this kind of vivid association immediately, thanks to the unceremonious delivery of every book, film, and TV show into his mind a year earlier, but he’d been too preoccupied with the discovery of his long-lost grace to think too deeply on it.

Today, standing in the bunker’s garage almost two years on, he finds himself experiencing the phenomena of olfactory memory once more.

The warm, metallic scent of motor oil lingers over everything here, and it’s soothing in a way that Castiel is uncertain how to quantify until he identifies the common thread between countless memories attached to it. Days spent on the road with the Winchesters, or hours in the scrapyard outside Bobby Singer’s house, or anywhere at all with Dean’s hand on his shoulder. He can imagine all of them at once as soon as the scent reaches his senses.

It’s home, that smell.

Even a few years ago, the idea that he should have an opinion on something as human as the intangible truth of knowing you’re home would have struck him as utterly absurd. Now, he finds he doesn’t care, so long as he can feel it. So long as he can let it wrap around him and settle the restless feeling in his chest at moments like this one, when he’s anticipating a difficult conversation with someone he loves.

Standing with one hand on the hood of his truck and his eyes on the glossy black paint of the Impala, he breathes deeply and lets himself sink into the feeling. He wants to stay here. He wants it so badly that his chest begins to ache all over again at the sound of Dean’s rapidly approaching footfalls in the hallway outside.

When Dean rushes into the garage a few seconds later, Castiel meets his panicked eyes and reminds himself that home is not confined to this place, even if he’d like it to be.

“Are you alright?” Castiel asks before Dean can say anything, and though he steps a little closer he stops short of where he’d like to be. There’s space between them that he’s not certain he should cross until after they’ve spoken. Dean’s brows knit together.

“Depends. You bailing?”

His voice comes out harsh and accusatory. Castiel can’t help but flinch a little to hear it.

“I don’t want to,” he hedges.

Dean huffs and shakes his head.

“But?”

“But I will if you want me to,” Castiel says. “And I suspect that you do.”

For a brief moment, an incredulous look passes over Dean’s face, as if he’s going to argue that he would never ask Castiel to leave, but then—

He tenses. Guilt sinks his shoulders. Castiel feels the burden of it on himself for inadvertently dragging open an old wound.

“Perhaps _want_ isn’t the right word, but… I could hear you. Talking to Sam,” he explains, lifting his hand from the hood of his truck to wave vaguely in the direction of his room. Dean grimaces. “I know this is difficult, but Dean—”

“I wanted to tell him,“ Dean cuts him off. “But he just…”

Dean falters, trails off, and Castiel regards him for a moment before he speaks.

“Can I ask you something?”

Dean nods.

“Are you sure? About this?” he clarifies with a gesture between them, and Dean frowns.

“Thought I made that pretty clear last night.”

“You did, but Dean…” Castiel weighs his words carefully. “Do you know how prayer works?” 

Dean frowns at the apparent non-sequitur before he shakes his head, and Castiel explains. “Not all prayers are the same. There’s the formal kind—prayers that begin with a name and end with an amen, or at least the impression of one. You’ve directed a lot of those to me over the years.”

“I’ve never said _amen_ in my life.”

“Yes, you usually substituted with some reference to my ‘feathery ass’,” Castiel says, and Dean snorts a low laugh. A little of the tension seems to leave him with it. “But it was a clear sign off on a formal prayer, all the same.”

“Mm, I guess,” Dean agrees, and crosses his arms over his chest, rocking on his heels. “So, what’s the other kind?”

“The other kind… In some circumstances, longing can work the same way as a prayer.”

It’s the truth, but saying as much out loud makes Castiel’s ears grow hot with embarrassment that he’s still not certain he should be capable of feeling. Dean doesn’t fare much better, his cheeks flushing pink. Castiel tries not to enjoy the sight so much, given what he’s about to say.

“Huh,” Dean says.

“There’s intent in the feeling, and direction in the name, even if you don’t speak it out loud. It’s not like mind reading—it’s less solid than that, less structured—but when you… when you have craved my presence, I have felt it as clearly as if you had prayed to me directly.”

Dean shuffles on his feet and clears his throat.

“In that case, you should know that I, y’know, want you here,” he says, a little awkward in his admission. “That hasn’t stopped since yesterday. Hell, if anything—”

“I know,” Castiel assures him, and reaches out to touch his shoulder, just once. Just while he still can. “But just now, while you were talking to Sam… you wished that you didn’t.”

Dean looks up at him, startled and hurt, as though he’s been punched in the stomach, but Castiel goes on, needing to clear the air between them as much as he possibly can.

“You might not want me to leave, but a part of you—a big enough part that it overwhelmed every other feeling you were subconsciously projecting toward me—wished that we’d left this alone.” He shoots Dean a smile, hoping that it comes across more comforting than it feels. “I don’t know if it’s wise to ignore that, especially considering the strain that this is already putting on your relationship with Sam.”

“And this is your solution? You’re just gonna give up?”

“Dean—”

“No. Look. I’m not gonna lie—it probably _would_ be a hell of a lot easier if neither of us wanted anything more here. But easier doesn’t mean better, Cas. If I wanted easy, I would’ve kept my mouth shut last night. I’m tired of easy.”

“I just can’t help but feel as though this might be too much to ask of you.”

“One? It’s not. And B? You’re not asking.” He sighs. “I’m probably gonna screw things up a dozen times before the week is out, but you’ve gotta believe me when I tell you I’m in this. I’m with you. Don’t let me fuck this up with my knee-jerk bullshit, okay?”

Castiel nods on an exhale, and Dean bridges the distance between them to pull him close, pressing his lips to the skin below Castiel’s ear.

“I’m with you,” Dean repeats, and Castiel lets his eyes close as he breathes in the scent of motor-oil and Dean’s shampoo. This memory, he knows, will become as inextricably bound as all the others. He can’t help but hold on a little tighter at the thought, if only to catalogue every aspect of Dean’s embrace in as much detail as possible.

“What now?” he asks when they separate. Dean rubs the back of his neck, chewing his lip as he thinks it over.

“I need to try again with Sam, obviously. Maybe take the day to butter him up first,” he says, and hesitates. Castiel already knows what he’s going to say.

“And that would be easier if you didn’t have to worry about me overhearing or Sam dragging me into the conversation,” Castiel says. Dean nods, shame all over his features. “It’s alright. I can give you some space.”

“I really don’t want to ask you to leave.”

“You’re not asking,” Castiel tells him. “I’m offering.”

“Just… don’t go far. I’ll come find you as soon as I get this shit with Sam squared away.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.”

“Alright.”

“There’s a truck stop in Red Cloud,” Dean suggests. “The Red Robin. I’ll meet you there tonight.”

“Will that be enough time?”

“The longer I put this off, the harder it’s gonna be.”

“As long as you’re sure.”

“I am. And I’ll try to keep a lid on my dumbass thoughts while you’re gone,” Dean adds, before looking at Castiel hopefully. “There’s no way you can, y’know… turn it off?”

“Not without suppressing my grace entirely, but that would also mean I’d stop healing. So,” he shrugs, then smiles. “And if I’m being entirely honest, it’s usually… nice. Having that connection. Knowing that you’re thinking of me.”

“Seems a little unfair, if you ask me.”

“Dean, trust me when I say that I am almost always thinking of you.”

Dean responds to the earnest declaration with a level of embarrassment that Castiel is unaccustomed to seeing on his face, making a low _pshh_ sound as he looks away, and Castiel catches hold of his chin, turning him back for a kiss.

They only pull apart when they hear Sam’s voice echoing through the bunker.

“Dean? Cas?”

Dean shoots Castiel an apologetic look before he calls back, “Garage!”, then lowers his voice. “Red Robin, tonight. Yeah?”

“I’ll be there,” Castiel tells him, slipping his keys from his pocket to unlock his truck. 

Perhaps it’s a little cowardly, but he’d like to already be on his way out when Sam reaches the garage. As it turns out, he’s barely got the door open when Dean clears his throat, and he looks back to see him pointedly eyeing the half-deflated rear tire. 

Castiel gives him a sheepish smile. “I meant to fill it,” he says.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean replies, heading toward the workbench where he keeps an assortment of car maintenance tools. “Just give me a minute.” 

Dean’s maneuvering the heavy air compressor off of its shelf when Sam steps inside, typing something into his phone. Castiel doesn’t miss the way he schools his expression into something passably civil when he slips it into his pocket and meets Castiel’s eye.

“What did Jody want?” Dean asks before Sam can say anything, and Castiel moves to help him with the compressor. “Thanks, Cas.”

“Just checking in,” Sam says, watching them with a frown. “You going somewhere, Cas?”

“Not until this thing is less of a deathtrap,” Dean says. He lets out a grunt as they settle the compressor near the truck, and stands to wipe his dusty hands on his jeans. Castiel rolls his eyes.

“One slightly flat tire doesn’t make it a—”

“Better safe than sorry,” Dean cuts him off, and Castiel sighs before he looks at Sam.

“I thought it might be easier to track Kelly if we were a little more spread out,” he lies, hoping that it will be enough to stop him asking for more details.

“Yeah, makes sense,” Sam says.

It’s only a handful of minutes before Dean has the tire full and the truck ready to go, and with Sam present, Castiel regrets being unable to say goodbye the way he’d like to. Instead, he climbs into the driver’s seat and turns the ignition. Dean knocks his knuckles against the hood.

“Drive safe,” he says.

“Keep in touch, okay?” Sam adds, and in spite of everything, Castiel finds that he’s glad to hear it. He’s known since this started that Sam’s heart is in the right place—that his reservations and his reactions, as hurtful as they have been, have all come from a place of love--but it’s still a relief to be reminded that Sam doesn’t hate him. They might not be okay right now, and they might not be okay again for a while, but Sam still cares. Their friendship, however strained, is salvageable.

He smiles, as much as he’s able, and shifts into gear.

“I will.”

—

Castiel isn’t sure that he’s ever hated an inanimate object quite as much as he hates the bell over the door at the Red Robin truck stop. Each time it rings, he feels a low, anticipatory swoop in his stomach—a hopeful flutter that is repeatedly followed by dismay when every newcomer is revealed to be a stranger. It happens a dozen times, maybe more, but he still looks up every time and curses the bell for each disappointment.

He’s already been waiting for several hours, but though he knows it’s likely that Dean won’t be here until much later in the evening, he can’t help but count the minutes as they pass.

The coffee is burnt and bitter, the particles rearranged into a pattern that makes him wrinkle his nose, and he adds an unreasonable amount of sugar to counter the taste. When he takes another sip, he thinks of Nora back at the Gas N’ Sip in Idaho, constantly confused as to how they could possibly need to refill the sugar packets already.

Thoughts of his time in Rexford always seem closer to the surface when he drinks coffee. Combined with his anticipation of Dean’s arrival, Castiel can’t help but think of that day when he’d arrived at the Gas N’ Sip unannounced. At the time, Castiel had been harboring almost as much resentment for Dean as love, and though he had set a little of it loose, he’d still been far too happy to spend time with Dean to let his anger spoil it.

His spoon clinks against the mug as he thinks of the way Dean had grinned at him, eyes shining under the convenience store fluorescents. He’d looked wonderful. Most people looked sickly and pale under those lights; Dean looked like a dream.

Now, Castiel realizes that he may have been slightly biased in that assessment, but he doesn’t particularly care.

With a small smile, he adds another packet of sugar to his mug, and looks up as the bell over the door chimes again. Another stranger. This time, it’s a harried-looking young father, two small children hanging onto his legs as he shuffles across the diner’s checkerboard floor.

All three have the beginnings of a nasty cold, and Castiel instinctively stretches his wings out in the ether, brushing the very tips of his primaries over each of them and destroying the virus before it can fully take hold. Thanks to the injuries he’s still recovering from, the action takes more out of him than it usually would, but as he watches the small family visibly gain energy, he can’t bring himself to regret it.

It’s a small mercy that though his grace is weak and glacial in its efforts to heal his own wounds, it’s still powerful enough to help those in need.

He zones out a little as he’s watching the family take their seats, and after a moment the father notices him staring. He frowns, not-so-subtly lifting his shoulders, and Castiel looks sharply away to focus on his cup of what is, at this point, basically syrup. He knows he shouldn’t stare. Dean has told him countless times, as has Claire. Even Sam has mentioned it once or twice.

He only wishes that he could show them all what he sees. They’d understand, he’s certain of it, if only they could see how endlessly fascinating the human soul can be.

He’s still musing on that thought when he feels the distant ache of Dean’s longing for the first time since he left the bunker. It lasts a few seconds before being suddenly truncated, and then Dean is praying to him. Just a sheepish little _sorry_ that makes Castiel’s heart warm to hear. It’s been hours already, and he’s unsure as to whether or not Dean has even spoken to Sam yet, though he’s inclined to think not. Though he’s growing more apprehensive and impatient with every passing minute, he can’t blame Dean for needing to build up to the conversation. After his attempt this morning went so far off track, he knows that Dean will be second guessing every sentence.

Several more hours pass in much the same way. 

Before he knows it, Castiel is on his eleventh cup of coffee and his fourth plate of dessert, ordered purely because a waitress had politely informed him after three hours of nothing but refills that he’d need to order something to eat or vacate the seat for another customer. She’d seemed uncomfortable bringing it up, particularly considering that there were no less than eight unoccupied booths available at the time, but as a being who has been subjected to the compulsory enforcement of arbitrary rules by both a minimum-wage employer and the echelons of Heaven itself, he’d seen no point in arguing.

Right now, he’s making his way through a dense slice of German chocolate cake. As he methodically chews each molecule-flavored mouthful, he tries to recall the taste he’d enjoyed so much when he’d had occasion to try a cupcake sample at a market shortly after his arrival in Rexford.

He’s remembering the way the sweet frosting had made the roof of his mouth feel oddly ticklish when he suddenly senses Dean’s presence, and looks outside just in time to see the Impala pulling into a space near his own truck. Castiel watches through the window as Dean climbs out of the car, taking in the way he checks his hair and adjusts his jacket in the reflection on the window.

He waves to a nearby waitress as Dean approaches the door.

“Could you bring another cup of coffee? My… friend has just arrived.” 

If the waitress notices him stumble over what to call Dean, she doesn’t acknowledge it, and merely gives him a smile and nod as she heads toward her station.

The bell over the door tinkles again, merry and bright where before it had seemed shrill and piercing. Castiel doesn’t hate it anymore.

Standing in the doorway, Dean’s gaze sweeps from table to table before it finally settles on Castiel, and a smile flickers over his face, but it’s weak at best. He’s visibly distraught. It would be obvious even if Castiel _couldn’t_ see the way his soul is pulled in tight, like an animal trying to hide. It’s not wonder Castiel hasn’t felt him reaching out since that one brief instance earlier in the evening—Dean’s tamping down on feeling anything at all, deliberately repressing every emotion in what Castiel can only assume is an attempt to keep him from being hurt.

He frowns as Dean crosses the floor. Even the way he walks betrays his anxiety—limbs stiff, each movement strangely measured as he slides into the other side of the booth. It makes Castiel deeply nervous.

“No ‘ _Hello, Dean_ ’?” Dean asks, barely disguising the unease in his voice. Castiel slides the rest of his cake across the table toward him.

“Hello, Dean,” he says, and Dean’s tense shoulders lower, just a little. He smiles back just as the waitress arrives with his coffee.

“Hey, Cas.”

“Can I get you anything else?” The waitress asks.

Dean gestures at the cake. “I’m all set, thanks.”

Reaching across the table to grab Castiel’s fork, Dean prods at the cake and waits until the waitress is out of earshot before he glances up to meet Castiel’s eye. Under the table, their feet bump together.

“Sorry I took so long,” Dean says.

“It’s alright,” Castiel tells him. “Did you…”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Dean chews the inside of his cheek and lifts a shoulder, far too casual.

“Guess,” he says, and Castiel’s chest aches.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well. Can’t say you didn’t warn me.” Dean slumps back in his seat, dropping the fork onto the plate with a clatter and rubbing at his forehead. “I should’ve listened, but I just… man, I really expected better from him. Some of the shit he said…”

He trails off, shaking his head and looking out the window.

“What did you tell him?”

Dean shrugs.

“Everything,” he says. “Told him that this thing between us is mutual, and that we’re going for it, and he just… he blew up. Said everything you told me he said to you, and a few other things that I’m not planning on repeating because they pissed me off so much, and just…” He sighs. “This is fucked, Cas.”

“I know.”

“No, seriously. It’s _fucked_. How is it that we finally figure this out, and _Sam,_ of all people, is putting up a roadblock?”

“He thinks he’s protecting you,” Castiel tells him. “He thinks he’s protecting both of us.”

“Yeah? Well he’s kinda being a dick about it.”

Castiel huffs, a humorless laugh that makes him feel more human than he has in years. “I won’t debate that.”

Picking up the fork, Dean pokes at the cake again.

“This any good?” he asks. It’s a fairly obvious attempt to change the subject, and Castiel appreciates it, even if his own response is lacking.

“I don’t know. I can’t exactly taste it.”

“Right. Molecules.” Dean frowns. “We gotta work on that.”

“I think we have bigger problems to focus on right now.”

“I’ll just add it to the list,” Dean says, and takes a bite. He moans. “God. We _really_ need to find you a molecules workaround, though. You’re missing out.”

“Seeing you enjoy it is almost as good as enjoying it myself,” Castiel assures him.

“Good to know,” Dean winks and takes another bite, and Castiel has the distinct impression that he’s just made another double entendre without intending to. 

He’s inordinately proud of himself when he figures out what it was after only a few seconds, but he doesn’t draw any attention to his linguistic success. Instead, he just watches Dean slowly eat the decadent slice of cake, and thinks about how he might get the chance to witness Dean derive pleasure from any number of things now. The thought is thrilling to the point of distraction, and as Dean hums in enjoyment of another bite, Castiel has to bite down on his own cheek to keep from echoing the sound. If this is the level of satisfaction Dean gets from eating a dessert that isn’t even pie, Castiel finds he can’t wait to find out how he’ll react in moments of true sensual pleasure. Even considering such things in an abstract way is more than he’s allowed himself before, but now that he’s started, he finds he can’t stop. Doesn’t much want to stop.

It’s not as though he’s new to the experience of physical desire. He’s felt it before, as an angel and as a human, and even acted on it as recently as this morning when he’d been seconds from climbing onto Dean’s lap before his injury had thrown a figurative wet blanket on the moment they were sharing. But that had been instinctual, almost involuntary in how deep-seated the compulsion was. In every instance, it’s been an indecipherable kind of hunger. A vague, restless need that he’s only ever managed to satisfy through trial and error. This is different. This desire is conscious, and specific, and agonizing beyond belief.

Castiel _wants_ , and for for the first time in all time, he knows precisely what it is that he’s craving.

He stares at Dean across the table, at the way his throat moves as he swallows the final bite, and feels his fingers curl against the table top.

“Man, that was good,” Dean says, and pushes the plate away, pressing his forefinger against the remaining crumbs and lifting them to his mouth as he meets Castiel’s eyes across the table. Castiel clears his throat.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

Sucking a barely-there smudge of frosting from his thumb in a move that Castiel suspects is not nearly as unconscious as Dean wants him to believe, Dean smiles. The effect is alarmingly similar to the sensation of being thrown free of his body. It must show on his face, because Dean just smiles wider.

“So. What now?”

Castiel, feeling altogether out of sorts after what he’s fairly certain was the latest-in-life sexual awakening that anyone has ever experienced in the history of consciousness, has no earthly clue. The bunker, while only a short twenty minute drive away, would force them to either separate or risk another confrontation with Sam while they’re both too mentally exhausted to navigate their way to a solution. He’s not sure that going home is a viable option.

“Yeah, I kinda don’t feel like heading back just yet anyway,” Dean admits, and looks back out the window. Castiel follows his gaze, and his eyes settle on the building across the street. It’s one of Red Cloud’s two motels—a dingy little place that seems mostly occupied by truckers taking the opportunity to sleep in a full-sized bed before they get back on the road, if its parking lot is anything to go by. It’s likely less comfortable than most of the places the Winchesters have stayed in over the years, but it would afford them the privacy needed to talk, so Castiel thinks it would do just fine.

Before he can make the suggestion himself, Dean nods toward it.

“We could, uh… get a room?” He asks, voice hesitant as though there’s any chance at all that Castiel would refuse. It’s only a split second before he seems to play back the phrase in his head, and he burns red to the tips of his ears. “Not that we— I just figured, it’s late. We could just hang out, or talk, or—“

“Or?”

Castiel raises his brow, challenging, and Dean purses his lips in an attempt not to laugh. He fails, and shakes his head.

“God, you’re an asshole.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it,” Dean says, then frowns. “You _were_ thinking it, right?”

“Thinking what?” Castiel asks, though he can feel his mouth twitching into an involuntary smile. He can hardly deny it, given his thoughts only a few minutes ago, but he sees no harm in feigning ignorance as to Dean’s meaning. If he’s lucky, maybe Dean will spell it out for him, and he’ll know better where to begin once he has the chance.

Dean doesn’t bite.

“Don’t try to be coy, it doesn’t suit you.”

At that, Castiel lets his smile break free, and Dean shakes his head with an embarrassed laugh. It’s absurd that he’s so self-conscious about the mere suggestion of what Castiel knows he wants to do. Dean’s always painted himself as more of a lotus-eater than a shrinking violet, and even knowing how little truth there was to his self-styled image of an uninhibited libertine, Castiel never expected him to be _this_ nervous. Certainly not now that he knows that Castiel is a sure thing.

“I don’t understand why you’re suddenly acting so reticent,” Castiel says.

“I don’t understand why you’re _not,”_ Dean counters. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you were like at that—what did you call it? A den of iniquity? And now you’re giving me all these sly looks, and this morning you’re just casually offering _fellatio,_ for chrissake. Who even _says_ that?”

“Is that not what it’s called?”

Dean stares at him. “I’m not having this conversation here.”

“You’re right. This topic is far better suited to a motel room,” Castiel agrees, ignoring Dean’s wide-eyed reaction as he stands. “Are you coming?”

“Yeah.” Dean pulls out his wallet, and Castiel waves his hand away to drop his own dubiously acquired cash on the table.

“I ordered a lot while I was waiting,” he explains.

Dean grimaces.

“Sorry. I really didn’t think it’d take so long, and then I, uh… I waited until Sam went to bed,” Dean says. He actually looks a little ashamed to admit it. “Kinda felt like a teenage girl sneaking out to meet the hot quarterback.”

“Am I the hot quarterback in this scenario?”

Dean just clears his throat, cheeks burning even redder than before as he walks away from the table. Castiel tries not to feel too smug about it.

—

The man at the motel check-in window gives them a twin room without asking, and Dean’s discomfort is palpable. 

Castiel can’t tell if it’s because of the man’s assumption that there’s nothing between them, or because he doesn’t know if or how he should correct him. He suspects it’s a little of both. Though Castiel isn’t exactly expecting anything when they get into the room—mostly he’s assuming that they’ll spend the next few hours trying to come up with some way to get through to Sam—he’s not naive enough to presume that Dean hasn’t been thinking about what they did the last time they were alone together, especially after their conversation at the diner.

He’s also, as it turns out, not above hoping that they might pick things up where they left off.

Their room key is a thin plastic card—weird for one of these tiny, middle-of-nowhere places, Dean remarks—and Castiel watches him flip it between his fingers as they approach the far end of the building. It’s a noticeably nervous gesture, and he fumbles it at the door. Castiel picks it up and opens their room easily, holding the keycard out for Dean when they step inside.

Between leaving the diner and now, Dean has only grown more flustered, and Castiel wonders what it’s going to take for him to unwind. If his nerves are something to be concerned about, or simply the result of years of repression taking time to shake loose. Either way, he thinks that given Dean’s usual aversion to difficult conversations—and the fact that they’ve already had several of those in the past day—his best course of action is likely to _take_ action. If he can show Dean that he’s got nothing to fear, that he’s truly not alone in his desires, then maybe he’ll relax.

So once the door has closed, before Dean can move too far away, Castiel catches hold of his wrist. He’s relieved when Dean lets him. His pulse races under Castiel’s touch, suddenly twice as fast as it was, and Castiel tilts his head to watch his reaction as he links their fingers together.

In the decade he has spent tethered to this body he has never felt more connected to it. Even while he was human, he’d felt slightly out of place, off center and wrong. With Dean’s hand in his own, he feels something within himself click into place, and knows, without doubt or reservation, that _this_ is what it is to belong. He hopes Dean can feel it, too.

He squeezes his hand, and Dean’s lip twitches. He looks as though he’s going to say something, and from the tilt of his mouth, Castiel thinks it must be a joke. But he meets his eyes, and something in them softens, and whatever attempt at deflection Dean was about to make dissolves into nothing. Castiel has the distinct impression that Dean had been acting on instinct himself, so used to forcing himself to make light of whatever he was feeling that now that things have changed he doesn’t know what to do.

Taking action, it seems, was the right decision.

Stepping in close, he tugs Dean closer to him and lets the fingertips of his free hand skate down over Dean’s side. Like this, he can feel the warmth of Dean’s skin through his clothes. The relief of it washes over him so wholly that his eyes slip closed. Dean’s breath is soft against his lips, close but not touching.

“Missed you today,” Dean murmurs, and it seems as though the words spill from him without his control. His walls crumbling away, nerves already dissipating even with this one small gesture. Castiel smiles.

With a tilt of his head, he grazes his nose along Dean’s.

“I missed you, too.”

Laughing, Dean trails his hand up over Castiel’s shoulder to grip the back of his neck, and the light press of his thumb against Castiel’s skin is as grounding as it is dizzying. “So stupid. Was just a day. Not even a whole day.”

“Still too long,” Castiel argues, and Dean makes a small sound of agreement, or need, or something else, and Castiel can’t stop himself from answering it. He kisses him, hard, as though their lips pressed together now will be enough to rid them of the hours, the years of longing that they’ve endured.

Dean seems to be of the same mind.

Not even twenty-four hours have passed since they first kissed outside the bunker, but as Dean’s mouth moves against his own, Castiel feels as though he’s been missing this forever. As though kissing Dean is something he’s been trying to find his way back to since before he knew his own name, blinking into awareness in the bright, holy light that made him.

They should take their time, he thinks as Dean tilts his chin to kiss him deeper. They should savor this moment. Draw it out. Make it last.

But, like this morning, his self restraint is all but rendered null by the touch of Dean’s hands. They glide over his back, into his hair, down his sides, and then--

Stop. Dean pulls back, flushed and breathless.

“How’s your stomach?” he asks, and Castiel frowns, unsure what he’s even talking about until Dean lifts his brow, and—of course. His wound. The lance. He’d completely forgotten about it.

“It’s better,” he says, and it doesn’t feel like a lie, or even an exaggeration. He hasn’t looked at it since Dean insisted on bandaging it, but it also hasn’t bothered him in several hours, and the few times that it _has_ twinged haven’t been even half as painful as this morning.

Still, Dean’s brow raises further.

“Better for real, or better as in _admitting that I’m still hurt isn’t convenient right now_?” he asks, and Castiel gives him an unimpressed frown. It’s tempting to point out that of all people, Dean shouldn’t be throwing stones over someone downplaying an injury, but he knows that arguing won’t get him anywhere. So he changes tack.

“Why don’t you take my shirt off and find out.”

Dean’s laugh is carefree and delighted, and Castiel beams when he realizes that the nerves he’d been impeded by are gone.

“I can’t tell if you’re actually that smooth, or if it’s just a side effect of you having no filter.”

Castiel opens his mouth, ready to suggest that if Dean wants to know how smooth he is, he’s more than welcome to feel for himself, but Dean’s hand lands over his mouth before he’s past the first syllable. The temptation to bite his palm is strong and sudden. Castiel refrains.

“Don’t,” Dean says, eyes bright with mirth. “Just—whatever innuendo you were about to attempt, just. Don’t.”

“Too much?” Castiel asks when Dean shifts his hand down to cup his jaw instead, thumb stroking over Castiel’s lower lip.

“Nah,” Dean says. He leans in, kissing Castiel once, before pulling away and gesturing toward the nearest bed. “Just don’t want you distracting me. Sit down?”

Castiel does, and Dean follows, kneeling in front of him the same as he did back at the bunker. His fingers are slow and careful as he unbuttons Castiel’s shirt, and Castiel waits, dreading the moment when Dean sees the still-healing wound and decides that Castiel is still too fragile to touch, nerves or not. But when he pulls the bandage away, a shiny pink line of new skin is the only sign that he was ever hurt. Dean traces over it with his thumb.

“See?” Castiel says. “Better.”

“You have a scar.”

“It was a powerful weapon.”

Dean hums, almost transfixed as he touches Castiel’s stomach, and only shifts away from the scar to touch the tattoo on his ribs.

“Didn’t even notice this,” he says.

“I’ve had it for years,” Castiel tells him.

“Yeah, well I guess I’ve been too distracted by the recurring stab wounds to be checking you for ink,” he says, then looks up, pulling his lower lip between his teeth as he meets Castiel’s eyes. “I like it.”

“It’s warding against angels. I got it when I was human.”

“Mm.”

Shifting forward, Dean’s chest bumps against Castiel’s knee, and he tilts his chin up as Castiel leans down meet him.

“Remember Rexford?” Dean asks against his lips.

“Of course.”

“That night at the motel, I almost...” Dean trails off, pushing at Castiel’s open shirt until it slides down his arms.

Swallowing, Castiel pulls his arms free so he can touch Dean’s face, and Dean looks up at him. He looks so open.

“I was awake the whole night, just… imagining it. What would happen if I got out of my bed. Got into yours. If I kissed you when you came out of the bathroom in the morning.”

Shuffling closer, into the space between Castiel’s splayed legs, Dean runs his hands back down over his chest and presses his mouth to Castiel’s throat. Something swoops in Castiel’s pelvis at the feeling of Dean’s lips, warmth spreading as Dean kisses him again and again, trailing to his shoulder and then his chest as Dean’s hands wander low over his stomach.

“I would have kissed you back,” Castiel tells him.

“Mm,” Dean hums. He sweeps one hand a little lower, thumb tracing the waistband of Castiel’s pants. The muscles of Castiel’s stomach and thighs twitch as he feels his arousal shift into high gear, heat pooling in his groin. He shifts, restless.

“I would have—”

Any hope of telling him what he would have done is lost as Dean’s lips alight on his chest again, so instead he touches Dean’s hair, sinking his fingers into it and holding on. Dean’s hand comes up to rest on top of his own almost immediately, and the touch is encouraging. He’s not sure _what_ Dean is encouraging until Dean squeezes his fingers and lets go to slide both palms down Castiel’s thighs to hook behind his knees, pulling him closer to the edge of the bed as his mouth travels low across Castiel’s abdomen, under his navel.

 _Oh,_ he thinks, and perhaps even says, but the dim light of the motel sign outside is catching on Dean’s hair, making his edges glow, and his hands are soft and far, far, too gentle, and Castiel’s entire being thrums with it. A bass note that runs through his bones to make him weak all over, so that if he were standing he’d end up on the floor. 

It only intensifies with the touch of Dean’s tongue, darting out over the tattoo on Castiel’s hip before his teeth scrape over the same place. He can’t help but follow the movement, rocking forward, and Dean makes a quiet, pleased sound, tightening his grip on Castiel’s leg with one hand as he drags the other back toward his fly. He looks up, meeting Castiel’s gaze, and in his eyes there’s something so self-assured that Castiel’s throat finally makes a helpless sound without his permission. They’ve traded places, somehow. Dean is as confident as he’s ever pretended to be, and Castiel is a timorous fool, desperate to be touched but lost for the words to ask for what he wants.

“Okay?” Dean asks, and Castiel nods. Swallows until he can speak again.

“Yeah. Yes. Okay.”

He feels it, then—Dean is longing for him again, aching for him as though they’re miles apart instead of touching in half a dozen places—but this time Dean doesn’t cut it off. Instead, he seems to focus on it. His soul catches hold of the feeling and lets it grow, build, swell like a wall of sound and sensation before he pulls on it like a leash.

Castiel says his name like it’s equal parts curse and praise, and Dean’s mouth splits into a wide grin before he ducks forward to mouth over his hip again, deft fingers working open the button of Castiel’s suit pants.

“Just testing,” he murmurs, and slides the zipper free before he pauses. “Help me out with these?”

Though his hands are steady, Castiel feels as though they should be shaking as he lifts his hips to slide his pants free. He feels jittery. Every facet of him is buzzing with tension, or anticipation, or joy, or some borderless amalgamation of all three.

“On second thought—” Dean pushes to his feet with an undignified grunt and kicks off his shoes. “Too old to be kneeling on the floor. Scoot back.”

He gestures toward the headboard, and Castiel does as he asks, shuffling to lean against it. It’s only when it digs into his shoulders that he glances back to find that it’s been made from half of an old wagon wheel, fixed to the wall. It’s just tacky enough to be absurd, and Castiel looks back at Dean to see him eyeing it with humor.

“Weirdly not the kitschiest motel decor I’ve ever seen,” Dean says, kneeling on the bed and moving closer. By the time he’s reached the end of the sentence, he’s settled between Castiel’s legs, and Castiel has forgotten what they were talking about. His hands skim over Castiel’s bare knees, up his legs. Castiel’s breath hitches when they stop, thumbs stroking over white cotton, pulled taut where Castiel’s penis is slowly filling out against his thigh. Dean sucks his lower lip between his teeth. “Still good?”

“Good,” he agrees.

“Just checking in.” 

Dean shifts even closer then, straddling Castiel’s leg, and the denim of his jeans is rough and cold against Castiel’s thigh. It’s just distracting enough that the feeling of his hand settling over Castiel’s rapidly filling erection comes as a complete surprise, and Castiel draws in a sharp breath, one hand lifting to grip one of the rungs of the bedhead behind him.

“Not such a stupid bedhead after all,” Dean says. His voice tighter than before, and it’s only when he hears it that Castiel realizes his eyes have closed. He forces them back open and watches Dean’s hand shifting over him, slow but deliberate before he stops completely to squeeze him at the base. Castiel’s knees raise to bracket him, and he doesn’t know whether it’s his body trying to keep him there forever or make this _toomuch **notenough** please_ feeling _stop_.

Dean releases him before he can figure it out, teasing his fingertips back and forth a couple of times as he leans in for another kiss, and Castiel clings to him through it. He’s vaguely aware of lifting his hips again as Dean tugs his underwear down and throws it, and then Dean’s rough palm is wrapped around him, stroking, his thumb gliding over the wet head, dragging down to smooth over—

“ _Please_ ,” he gasps out, arching into Dean’s hand, and Dean kisses him harder, sucking in a breath as he does. Castiel's hands tighten at his shoulders, twisting the fabric of Dean’s jacket. He hates this jacket. He hates it almost as much as he hated that damned bell.

“Hate this jacket,” he gasps, and Dean laughs, breathless and beautiful against his lips.

How he came to be stripped bare while Dean has not lost a stitch of clothing is both a mystery and a grave injustice, and he’s about to say as much when Dean’s fingers wrap around him completely, and he loses his grasp of every conscious thought he’s ever had. He bucks forward on instinct, slipping through the circle of Dean’s fingers.

Dean kisses him once more before he pulls away to watch Castiel rocking into his hand. He lets Castiel do all the work for a moment, just keeping a loose fist in place while Castiel’s body arches off the mattress, and then leans down to press his mouth to his thigh, nosing along the crease of his leg so his breath washes warm over Castiel’s erection.

“Wanted to do this for years,” he says, delivering a nip to his heated skin.

Watching him edge closer, Castiel sees the slightest hint of his nerves returning, and it’s enough to ground him. To make him want to make Dean blush and laugh and flirt, to tease Castiel back until he’s forgotten why he was embarrassed to begin with. Shifting up on his elbows and trying not to let Dean’s hand pull the words out of reach, he lifts an eyebrow in Dean’s direction.

“I knew it,” he says. “You laughed at me, but you’re just as interested in fellatio as I am.”

For a moment, Dean just stares, but then he squeezes Castiel in his hand again, and grins, and says, more bluntly than Castiel was expecting, “I’m interested in sucking your cock.”

Castiel gulps. He can’t believe that only an hour ago, he’d been worried that Dean might be too embarrassed to touch him. Now that the dam has broken, he wonders if he’ll be able to keep up.

“That’s what I said.”

“You’ve probably never said the word _cock_ in your life,” Dean grins, and Castiel glares at him. He could say cock if he wanted to. “So. Can I?”

“I have no doubt that you’re more than capable,” Castiel tells him, voice far more measured than he thinks it should sound, considering, but Dean’s eyes only darken at his words. Maybe he _will_ be able to keep up, after all.

“God, why the fuck is it so hot when you talk like that?”

Castiel doesn’t get a chance to answer, because between one moment and the next, Dean’s mouth is sealed over him, tongue teasing lightly at the sensitive skin of the glans. The heat of his mouth is almost unbearably good. Castiel can’t keep still as Dean sinks lower, the ridges of the roof of his mouth dragging over him. He grips Dean’s hair tighter, and shifts his hips in helpless movements that he couldn’t control if his life depended on it. Dean makes a pleased sound that vibrates through his skin.

The sensations alone would be enough to bring him close to the edge, but combined with the sight of Dean kneeling over him, his free hand spread over the blankets and moving in sympathy with the one wrapped around the base of Castiel’s erection, his eyes looking up to watch Castiel watching him, it’s too much, too much, _too much_ , and he’s going to lose control, and Dean is—

“ _Dean_ ,” he gasps out, pulling on Dean’s hair until he takes the hint, and even though he’s the one who pulled Dean off of him, his hips still rise to chase his mouth. The air of the motel room makes his spit-slick skin rapidly cool.

“What’dya know,” Dean says, his mouth pink from the stretch, voice a little rougher than usual, “I _am_ more than capable.”

He grins, and it’s a wild, feral thing that makes Castiel want him all the more. His hand is still in Dean’s hair, and he uses his grip to pull him up.

“Come here,” he says, and Dean goes without protest.

His mouth is hot, and it tastes different than before. Bitter and slightly salty. _That’s me_ , Castiel realizes, and though the taste isn’t exactly something he’d seek out on its own, knowing the reason it’s there makes him want to chase it. Wants to know Dean’s taste, too, to find out if they’re the same or similar or completely different.

“Now,” he says, briefly forgetting that Dean has not been privy to any of his thoughts, and when Dean doesn’t immediately respond Castiel pulls at his still frustratingly present jacket, at his overshirt, his t-shirt, his jeans, his underwear. Low, impatient sounds rumble in his chest when every item of clothing removed seems only to reveal _more_. It’s ridiculous that anyone should wear so many layers, and he tells Dean as much as he watches him stagger loose-limbed from the bed to pull his socks off.

“Moot point now,” Dean laughs, flinging them blindly across the room before he crawls back over him, sinking down into a kiss so deep that Castiel’s toes curl.

Despite Dean’s mouth having already been wrapped around him, it’s only when he feels the soft skin of Dean’s bare stomach pressed against his own that he truly realizes how enormous this moment is for them. How intimate this is. He supposes it must be something primal, something animal, wired into the genetic makeup of his body. Something to do with the most vulnerable part of themselves, their weakest points, exposed to one another willingly.

“Thank you,” he hears himself saying, and Dean leans back a little to look at him like he’s lost his mind.

“We’re not done yet,” he says.

“I’m serious, Dean. You’re wonderful. I love you. I need you to know that.”

Dean blinks at him, evidently lost for words in the face of Castiel’s love.

In any other circumstance, he might be ashamed of himself for taking advantage of Dean’s temporary stupor to gain the upper hand, but here, now, he’s willing to overlook it. He flips their positions swiftly, moves down Dean’s body, and slides his mouth over Dean’s straining cock before Dean knows what’s happening.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Dean wheezes, his hand flailing sideways and knocking one of the pillows onto the floor. Dean, to his credit, manages to keep himself from thrusting into Castiel’s mouth, but after experiencing the compulsion himself, Castiel quickly decides that it simply means he’s not trying hard enough. 

He bobs his head, teases with his tongue, tastes the bittersweet of Dean’s arousal, so similar to his own, and then takes Dean deeper than is likely advisable for a first attempt. When he swallows experimentally around the head, pressed to the back of his throat, the sound Dean makes is high-pitched and startled enough that he pulls off completely to make sure he hasn’t done something wrong.

“Dean?” he asks, hand tense on Dean’s knee. Dean just shakes his head, reaching down to grip himself around the base, hard, as he catches his breath. “Did I hurt you?”

Dean starts giggling at that, breathless little gasps as his eyes water.

“Jesus,” he says eventually, and pushes himself up, pulling Castiel until they’re side by side at the head of the bed. His eyes are bright. He’s smiling like he can’t believe his luck. “No, you didn’t hurt me.”

“Good.”

“Just… didn’t wanna… we should do it like this, yeah? This time, I mean. Want to see you.”

Saying so takes a lot out of him. Castiel can feel it in the way his soul hums and reaches out, so close to the surface that he can almost see it. His own soul, still there from his time as a human, reaches back.

“Show me how. Show me what you want.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, nodding as he shifts forward to slot one leg between Castiel’s, using it to pull him closer as he shows Castiel how to make it good. “Like this.”

With their hands together, spit-slick and wrapped around the two of them, the sensation is somehow more than the sum of its parts. Castiel doesn’t only feel skin against skin against skin, or the wet slip-slide of their combined arousal, or the static of air between them, or even electrons bouncing away from one another. He feels something more, something deeper, something in a dimension that he cannot place. 

He’s known the mechanics of sex for eternity; has even had occasion in recent years to put some of his knowledge to the test. None of it has prepared him for the way it feels to be taken apart and put back together by someone who loves him.

Dean kisses him as they move together. It’s unhurried at first, deep and luxurious as each roll of their hips, but every moment that passes makes the need for release grow more urgent, and any desire to take their time is replaced by an insistent need for more, faster, _now_. Slow thrusts become frenzied, and though their mouths are still pressed together, they’re soon doing little more than sharing breath.

Through it all, Dean calls to him. A building current of longing that simmers low until it boils over, all at once, in an endless moment of savage joy that leaves Castiel breathless despite only feeling it’s echoes. It’s dizzying in its intensity, and he’d know Dean had reached his peak even if he couldn’t feel the evidence on their joined hands.

Dean sighs into the hollow of his throat.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “Wanted you to come first, but—”

Castiel doesn’t have the words to tell him that he feels as though he has, so he kisses him quiet, and squeezes Dean’s fingers where they’re still wrapped around him. It’s not long before Dean helps send him over the edge, and his back bows, and his lungs burn, and he spills over Dean’s fingers. 

His entire body feels liquid. Formless. Reaching out beyond his edges, beyond his physical presence and all the way out to his wing tips in the ether. He’s trembling electric, sound and color. He presses his eyes closed, his forehead resting against Dean’s, and breathes.

“Can I thank you now?” he asks once he’s able, and Dean’s chest shakes in a silent laugh that Castiel hopes he’ll witness a thousand more times.

—

Castiel wishes, desperately, that he could sleep. 

Beside him, Dean’s been floating in a state of sated oblivion for a little over an hour. His features are relaxed and peaceful though his lips still betray a hint of the smile he’d had before he drifted off, and Castiel regrets being unable to get the full experience. He remembers from his time as a human that post-orgasm sleep was more restful, and considering how much better his time with Dean was than his time with the reaper or his own unpracticed right hand, he’s certain that he’s missing out on what would be the best night’s sleep imaginable right now.

Without any other options, Castiel meditates and tries to drift as close to unconsciousness as he’s able.

It takes more effort than it should, but once he does manage to reach a state of relative calm, it’s easy to let himself believe that things will work out. That every one of their problems—Sam’s disapproval, Kelly Kline and her unborn child, their tenuous trust in the British Men of Letters—has an easy solution, and that they’ll all seem simple and unthreatening by the time the sun rises.

Of course, one of those problems doesn’t wait long enough for Castiel to find any answers.

He’s as near to sleep as possible when he’s pulled back to full awareness by a cellphone buzzing from the side table, the bright blue-white light of the screen flaring outward and casting a hazy tinge over everything in the room. Dean startles at the sound, lurching upright and blinking dazedly as he reaches to pick it up. Castiel misses their close physical contact almost immediately, and Dean must realize, because his free hand shifts back to briefly squeeze Castiel’s wrist before he thumbs at the screen.

Castiel knows who it is the moment he sees Dean brace himself before he answers.

“Yeah?”

“ _Where are you?”_

Sam’s voice is muffled and tinny through the cell phone speaker, but Castiel can make out every word. He doesn’t sound worried, which is a relief, but the note of tense anger is a warning signal.

“Donnie’s bar,” Dean lies easily. Castiel gets the impression that he’d planned for this eventuality and had the location picked out ahead of time. “Couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d shoot some pool.”

There’s a long pause before Sam speaks again. When he does, Castiel feels the strange phantom sensation of his throat closing up.

_“I know you’re with Cas.”_

Dean’s entire body seems to go rigid, and Castiel sits up straighter, meeting his eyes in the dark. Though Sam can’t see them, he suddenly feels incredibly exposed, and pulls the sheets a little higher over his bare hips.

“What?” Dean asks, too caught off guard to come up with a convincing enough lie. There’s barely even a pause before Sam responds.

“ _GPS, Dean. I checked. Your phones are in the same place.”_

 _“_ So why’d you ask?”

_“Was hoping you’d tell me the truth. Figured you would, unless...”_

Dean narrows his eyes.

“Unless?”

_“Put Cas on.”_

“Why?”

_“Just do it.”_

Dean hesitates.

“I think you’ve said enough to him.”

“ _Dean_ —”

“No. You want to talk to Cas, you can call him yourself, and you’d better start with an apology.”

Dean jabs at the screen roughly with his thumb, ending the call, and tosses the phone onto the bed. His entire body is tense, but Castiel finds that he’s afraid to touch him in case he somehow makes things worse. He hates that he’s afraid again, after what they’ve done, after what they’ve shared, but like Dean’s hard-to-shake repression, his own hangups are difficult to avoid.

He shifts slightly away, moving to get out of the bed—to pull his underwear back on, at the very least—but Dean’s hand grips his thigh before he gets far.

“Don’t go,” he says, and Castiel shakes his head before he pulls Dean to lie beside him. With Dean’s back pressed to his chest, he wraps an arm around his waist and kisses his freckled nape.

“I promise,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be completely blunt about it, Castiel has turned into an all out horndog in this fic entirely against my will and I have no fucking control over him.
> 
> They weren't supposed to sleep together until much later in this fic, and when they did I'd planned on it being fade-to-black kind of stuff. But no matter what I did, they kept trying to bang in explicit detail, way ahead of schedule. When I finally gave up and just let them, they refused to make it a quickie. Hence the 10k word chapter and the rating change. I hope y'all enjoyed it :) Sorry for the long wait!

**Author's Note:**

> All the thanks to Maria for her encouragement with this, and to Nat for the same + the title. Y'all are like my two-person cheer squad and it's making all the difference in the world <3


End file.
